Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS AFTER PRAYERS

PORTSEA HARBOUR COMPANY BILL

Considered; to be read the Third time.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT

Airline Competition Policy

Mr. Colvin: asked the Secretary of State for Transport if he has yet completed his review of the interim assessment of the consultation on airline competition policy conducted by the Civil Aviation Authority.

The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Nicholas Ridley): The interim assessment contains some important ideas, but it would not be appropriate for me to comment on them as its purpose is to elicit comment from the British civil air transport industry and its users. The authority should report its conclusions on the review by mid-July.

Mr. Colvin: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. I gather that the final report will be out soon. Does he accept that, because British Airways is comfortably into profit and well en route for privatisation, further competition with that company on its existing routes

would be healthy? Does he further accept that hiving off routes that have taken British Airways some 60 years to acquire and on which it competes with about 200 companies in international air transport would be very damaging to the prospect of BA's public flotation.

Mr. Ridley: I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Lord King and his board on transforming the airline from a heavy loss maker to a high profit earner. I cannot, however, comment at this stage on my hon. Friend's views, because the matter is before the Civil Aviation Authority for review. We should like to hear everyone's views. I am the only one who cannot give views at this stage.

Mr. Cartwright: How does the Secretary of State intend to allay the obvious fears of independent airlines that they are likely to be steamrollered by a newly privatised British Airways, which has been built up to its present dominant position by the investment of substantial public funds?

Mr. Ridley: That concern is at the heart of questions put to the Civil Aviation Authority. We should await its views on those topics. I am sure that the House will then want to return to the matter in the light of the Government's decision, which will be based on the authority's views. They will be put forward next month.

Mr. Soames: Does my right hon. Friend acknowledge that these are difficult times for the employees of British Air Tours and of British Caledonian Airways, both of which are in my constituency, because of the uncertainty that is hanging over them before the publication of the CAA report? Will my right hon. Friend be able to make a statement on the report before the summer recess?

Mr. Ridley: Change always makes for uncertainty. One of the features of modern life is that change seems to be accelerating in almost every industry. I have sympathy with those who are affected, but that is not an argument against change. I do not know how the Government will handle the CAA report, and I have to reserve my position as to when we shall make it public and give our views. The report will be made public and the Government will give their views as soon as possible.

Mr. Robert Atkins: Does my right hon. Friend recognise the contribution to the improvement in British Airways' operations that has been created by the activities of companies such as British Midland Airways, Britannia Airways and British Caledonian Airways in raising the levels of competition and of service to the customer? When he takes into account the views about the report that will come from a variety of people, will he recognise their genuine fears about the effects of British Airways' continuing monopoly in the market?

Mr. Ridley: My hon. Friend and I stand absolutely together on the virtues of competition in this industry, as in others. That is why I am trying to introduce more realistic competition into the European airline market as well as into domestic routes. However, I am sure my hon. Friend will agree that competition must be not only free, but fair. That is at the heart of the problem that we have posed to the CAA.

Mr. Prescott: Has the Secretary of State seen the report in Accountancy Age, which makes it clear that British Airways' interim accounts seem to have been massaged considerably, in the interest of share purchasers rather than taxpayers?

Mr. Ridley: I have not seen that article, but I have taken all possible care to urge the British Airways Board to ensure that all its financial reporting is based on the most accurate figures possible.

Cross-Channel Link

Dr. Marek: asked the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects to meet the French Minister of Transport to discuss the report on finance for a fixed cross-Channel link.

Mr. Ridley: I am in regular contact with the French Minister of Transport, and I will have further discussions with him once we have both had time to consider the report and assess reactions to it.

Dr. Marek: Although one accepts the Government's general policy on investment, does the Secretary of State realise that such a project needs Government encouragement and commitment? Will he do all that he can to ensure that, if agreement with the various parties is achieved, construction of the Channel tunnel link will be started as soon as possible?

Mr. Ridley: We must give the interested groups a little time in which to come forward with proposals. However, if any group has proposals which do not involve either Government funding or guarantees of an economic or commercial nature, we shall certainly consider them sympathetically and try to assist. Nevertheless, the Government have made their position clear throughout, and are prepared to give only political guarantees and to assist with such things as treaties with the French and the maritime and other risks that might be involved in construction.

Mr. Crouch: Before my right hon. Friend gives any thought to so much as one penny of taxpayers' money being spent on that cross-Channel fixed link, will he give a little thought to the negligence of the Department and Kent county council over the delay of no less than 18 months in building a proper flyover at the Barham crossroads on the A2?

Mr. Ridley: I shall certainly look into that matter, although it does not arise from the original question, because, as I have said, the Government are not contemplating giving one penny of taxpayers' money to the construction of the fixed Channel link.

Mr. Wilson: As one effect of the Channel link would be to create jobs in northern France and the south-east of England, would it not be right to give priority to the improvement of transport communications generally and the provision of a common transport subsidy? That would enable firms in Scotland, the north of England and Northern Ireland to take their goods to market in the EEC without facing the crippling cost of transport. Unless a transport subsidy is given, areas in the south will be aided, to our disadvantage.

Mr. Ridley: The hon. Gentleman cannot have too much to complain about, as there is already a cross-Firth link in the Tay bridge which serves his part of Scotland. I am not at all sure that it would be right to give advantages in the form of money or guarantees to those who wish to provide a fixed Channel link as opposed to those who wish to provide ships and ferries to carry our trade across the Channel to Europe.

Mr. Moate: Does my right hon. Friend realise that it is generally accepted that any Channel tunnel should be a genuine private sector project? However, at some point the decision whether or not to proceed must be political, and I am sure that at an early stage the Government will want to settle all the speculation and uncertainty that have continued for so long. Can my right hon. Friend give us any idea of the time scale involved in the political decision-making?

Mr. Ridley: My hon. Friend is absolutely right in saying that it must be a private sector venture, and the Government will need to give it statutory treaty and access facilitation on this side of the Channel.

Mr. Robert Hughes: What does that mean?

Mr. Ridley: It means building the roads or railways that lead to the mouth of the tunnel. We have to do that. If any group suggests a project which is viable against Government criteria, we will assist. The private sector must come forward with fully developed plans before we can work out a time scale.

Mr. Anderson: Can the Secretary of State spell out what he means by "we will assist"? Does he mean that in no case will the Government give financial assistance and that they intend to stand aloof from the project, even at the risk of its foundering yet again?

Mr. Ridley: It means that it will be necessary to build either roads or railways to provide access to the English side of the link. It will be necessary to agree a treaty with the French and to examine the maritime and navigational risks to ensure that they are acceptable. It will probably be necessary to give a guarantee that the project will not be interrupted by political actions beyond the control of the promoters. Beyond that the Government are not prepared to go.

M1. (Delays)

Mr. Janner: asked the Secretary of State for Transport what steps he is taking to reduce the delay caused by roadworks on the M1 in the east midlands.

The Minister of State, Department of Transport (Mrs. Lynda Chalker): All possible steps to reduce delays are being taken. Roadworks are carefully phased in relatively short sections with reasonable gaps in between. Delays generally occur only in peak periods after road traffic accidents.

Mr. Janner: Is the Minister aware that eight deaths have occurred recently because of accidents on the M1 due to road works at contraflow areas? All of them were near Leicester and the latest was yesterday. How long will this terrifying toll of tragedy be allowed to continue? While it does continue, will the Minister warn motorists to exercise extra care in contraflow areas and to keep a much greater distance behind other vehicles, including mine?

Mrs. Chalker: I much regret the deaths that have taken place. The hon. and learned Gentleman is right to say that many accidents occur because motorists go through a contraflow section at too great a speed. Warning speed limits of 50 mph are posted. Motorists also bunch up far too closely behind the vehicles in front. Whenever that happens, there is a grave danger of an accident and, therefore, of personal injury. In every press notice that I have put out in the past two and a quarter years I have warned about the need to keep a fair distance behind the vehicle in front and for motorists to obey the warning instructions. I hope that motorists will take heed of this awful death toll.

Mr. Higgins: Is the limit to which my hon. Friend refers legally enforceable? Will she clarify the position, because there is some doubt whether speed limits on rather unofficial-looking signs are enforceable?

Mrs. Chalker: The speed limit written in black on a white background with a black border is advisory. Before one can introduce a speed limit on any road, one must apply for orders. An objection period is necessary and the whole process could take longer than the road works to which it applies. I have asked officials if there is any other way of enforcing such a speed limit, but I have not yet found one.

Pensioners' Fares (London)

Mr. Gould: asked the Secretary of State for Transport what response he has had from the London boroughs to his plans for a concessionary fares scheme for London pensioners.

Mr. Ridley: The London Boroughs Association has welcomed the provision in the London Regional Transport Bill of a statutory reserve travel concession scheme. It has also agreed the principle of a voluntary joint scheme, based on the existing one, and is working out the details.

Mr. Gould: Does the Secretary of State recognise that the remarkable swing to Labour in London's EEC elections represents not only a satisfactory pricking of the alliance parties, but is a clear and unmistakable rejection by Londoners of the Government's attacks on their rights?

Mr. Speaker: Order. The question relates to concessionary fares.

Mr. Gould: Does the Secretary of State now expect Tory-controlled boroughs in London and London Tory Members of Parliamemt, who are now living on borrowed time, to heed the electoral warning, and will he and his colleagues do likewise?

Mr. Ridley: I agree with you, Mr. Speaker, that the European elections have no relevance to the future of the concessionary fares scheme in London. It is indicative of the Opposition's view of the matter that they should want the future of Europe to be fought on the battlegrounds of domestic legislation for London. It is typical of the Labour party, for that is the length and breadth of its vision on the great topic of Europe.

Mr. Tracey: Does my right hon. Friend intend to accept the amendment tabled in another place, which seeks to extend concessionary fares to the evening period?

Mr. Ridley: We do not intend to overturn the amendment on evening peak travel. Their Lordships are well aware that they have deliberately left in the relevant clause of the Bill power for London Regional Transport to change the timings without my approval or that of the House and to reinstate the eyeing period, if desirable.

Mr. Cartwright: In the light of recent court cases, is the Secretary of State confident that the London Boroughs Association and the Association of London Authorities will sink their political differences and co-operate in negotiating the best possible concessionary fares scheme for London's pensioners?

Mr. Ridley: The latest information is that they are more or less agreed on a scheme which closely resembles existing provisions for concessionary fares, and are working on the details now. I hope that they will succeed, because I have always been reluctant about the use of the reserve powers in the Bill. It would be better if the local authorities could agree. I wish them well.

Mr. Parris: If the Government do not abolish the GLC, will my right hon. Friend nevertheless take London Transport under his wing?

Mr. Ridley: Yes, Sir, and very soon.

Mr. Prescott: Does the Secretary of State's statement mean that although the House refused to include peak time travel in the pass for pensioners, which was, however, included in the other place, his guarantee that pensioners will not be worse off than before means nothing, because London Transport can change the hours? Will that system be introduced?

Mr. Ridley: Yes, that is the present position. The GLC can change the hours without statutory procedures, and London Regional Transport will also be able to do so.

Road Signs (Advertising)

Sir Anthony Meyer: asked the Secretary of State for Transport whether he will encourage the introduction of commercial advertising into road signposting.

Mrs. Chalker: No, Sir. The introduction of commercial advertising would conflict with the primary purpose of traffic signs, which is to assist road users to get to their destination in safety.

Sir Anthony Meyer: That is a most disappointing answer. Will my hon. Friend encourage the officials in the Department, who, if anybody, are responsible for signposting in its present spasmodic and misleading form, to visit France, where they manage to combine commercial advertising with excellent signposting both in the cities and on the open road?

Mrs. Chalker: I know that my hon. Friend is enamoured of French signposting. In Britain, we have in the past followed the august reports of a number of bodies. I have put in hand for Kent, and later for Nottinghamshire, two experiments to sign interesting historic places by means of white on brown signs, similar to those in France, of which my hon. Friend has spoken so favourably. We shall monitor those experiments and see what more can be done to ensure that those places offering objects of historic interest are made attractive and known to the road traveller.

Mr. Freud: Before the Minister overdoes her encouragement of signposting to places of historic interest, will she bear in mind that most towns and villages are inadequately signposted? As a priority, will she look at the American system, in which all motorway exits signpost what happens if the motorist leaves at that exit, what happens when he reaches the next exit, and the distance to it?

Mrs. Chalker: The hon. Gentleman knows that much of the signposting for towns and villages is the responsibility of county councils. However, I note what he says about displaying on the signpost exactly how far the next exit is. Our problem is that the more words we put on a signpost, the longer the motorist's attention will be distracted. I do not wish to do anything that might increase accidents, such as putting too much on signs or having too many of them.

Mr. Coombes: Is my hon. Friend aware of the growing amount of graffiti on road safety notices, especially on motorways, in connection with pressure groups such as CND? Is she worried about this developing tendency, and does she have plans to combat it?

Mrs. Chalker: Anyone who gets within sufficient distance of a signpost to obliterate part of it or to damage it in some other way is breaking the law by being on the side of the motorway at that point. Officials of the county councils, which are the highway authorities which look after those matters for us, seek to remove such graffiti as quickly as possible. However, it is becoming increasingly expensive to do so, and we must consider how we can make signposts less vulnerable to such attacks.

Sir Anthony Meyer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I give notice that I shall seek to raise this matter on the Adjournment.

London (Road System)

Mr. Chapman: asked the Secretary of State for Transport if he is satisfied with the level of investment by his Department in the road system in the Greater London area.

Mr. Ridley: London is receiving considerable benefit from the Government's first priority in its road programme—the completion of the M25. Within Greater London we are already planning to spend more than £700 million during the next 10 years or so.

Mr. Chapman: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, by any criterion, there has been gross under-investment in the capital's road system during the past 15 years? With the completion of the M25, does he agree that there is a case at least for a minimum new road-building programme

to remove traffic from environmentally sensitive areas, to improve road junctions and to increase the number of traffic management schemes?

Mr. Ridley: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The evidence of our doing so is the figure that I mentioned of more than £700 million which we are planning to spend on London's roads within the next 10 years, apart from the M25. That motorway should take out of London traffic that need not be there, and we must then cater for the traffic that has business in London in an environmentally sensitive way as well as expediting the flow of traffic.

Mr. Jessel: Does my right hon. Friend believe that any of his Department's investment in Greater London has been wasted by the GLC scheme to squeeze the capacity of traffic on the A4 at Cromwell road and Talgarth road, in which the Department has invested a considerable sum of taxpayers' money?

Mr. Ridley: If one wished to discourage traffic from entering central London, and to encourage people to use public transport, the GLC's method of doing so at Talgarth road is an object lesson of how not to achieve one's aims. The concept was mistaken from the beginning and the GLC must urgently find a way to allow traffic to flow on the A4. I have urged it constantly to do so, but so far the response has been inadequate.

Royal Docks

Mr. Spearing: asked the Secretary of State for Transport what consultations he has had with the Port of London Authority concerning continued access of oceangoing vessels to the royal group of docks.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. David Mitchell): None, Sir.

Mr. Spearing: Is the Minister aware that, despite its statutory responsibilities, the Connaught cut swing bridge in the royal docks cannot now be swung? Will he assure the House that the Port of London Authority will neither hinder nor prevent any future cargo operations in the royal docks, if only for the reason that more shipping in the Thames would provide it with more revenue?

Mr. Mitchell: That is a matter for the PLA; but as there is substantial under-utilisation of alternative facilities at Tilbury and on the river, which are within the PLA area, it is highly unlikely that there would be a demand at that spot.

Airline Tickets

Mr. Gregory: asked the Secretary of State for Transport what recent consultations he as had on reducing prices of airline tickets from London to major French airports; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. David Mitchell: We are pressing for the liberalisation of air fares on all European routes, and we warmly welcome the proposals for lower, more competitive, fares which are now coming forward from our airlines.

Mr. Gregory: I welcome the initiatives taken by the Government to reduce air fares. Does my hon. Friend know of any proposals by British companies in this area?

Mr. Mitchell: I am pleased to be able to tell the House that British Caledonian Airways is today announcing a


new initiative on European fares, which includes an off-peak one-way fare to Paris of £35, which is almost half the existing fare. We look forward to discussing British Caledonian Airways' proposals with the French and other Governments involved.

Mr. Wilson: As many passengers flying to the Continent must do so by going through London airport at exorbitant additional cost, should not a greater Government priority be the introduction of inter-regional or international lines between other parts of the United Kingdom and the Community countries in order to cheapen the cost of transport, which at present is hideously expensive?

Mr. Mitchell: We have already made it easier for interregional airport traffic to take place under an EEC directive. The problem is that not sufficient people wish to travel on those routes to make them commercially viable. We are seeking to introduce greater competition on the major routes, which should result in a significant improvement in service and a reduction in fares.

Mr. Prescott: Is the Minister aware that the last initiative on cheap air fares by B-CAL and the Amsterdam groups, launched by the Secretary of State during the Euro-elections as something of a gimmick, has now run into the ground? Is he also aware that it has been rejected particularly by people in London, who hear the Secretary of State calling for cheap fares on aeroplanes while doing everything he can to increase fares for ordinary people on trains and buses?

Mr. Mitchell: Far from my right hon. Friend's initiative having run into the ground, he is meeting the Dutch Minister at The Hague this Wednesday, and I am hopeful that he will succeed in completing the current negotiations.

Divers (Insurance)

Mr. Boyes: asked the Secretary of State for Transport if he will introduce legislation to ensure that all divers are adequately insured by the company for whom they work.

Mr. David Mitchell: Divers working from United Kingdom ships within United Kingdom waters are already covered. I am consulting about the need to extend cover elsewhere.

Mr. Boyes: I assure the Minister that my question is based on a real case in which the diver died and his widow received a letter saying that the company had no collective insurance for either accident or death. Can he give an absolute assurance that if measures are introduced they will include foreign divers, as many British divers are resentful of the increased percentage of foreigners working in British waters because of the additional costs to companies of employing British divers? If foreign divers are not included, it would make a British diver even more costly to employ.

Mr. Mitchell: I shall cover the hon. Gentleman's general point in the consultations to which I have referred. On his specific case, if he will write to me I shall look into it further. There is, of course, a liability on an employer within United Kingdom waters to insure against employer's liability, but in a highly paid profession it rests on the man to insure himself against an accident as opposed to relying on employer liability.

British Rail (Industries Relations)

Mr. Ron Lewis: asked the Secretary of State for Transport when he next expects to discuss industrial relations in the railway industry with the chairman of British Rail.

Mr. Ridley: I next plan to meet the chairman of British Rail on 2 July as part of our regular schedule of meetings. There is no formal agenda for these meetings, but if the chairman wishes to raise the subject of industrial relations I will, of course, be happy to discuss it with him.

Mr. Lewis: Is the Secretary of State aware that as much as 70 per cent. of railway workers still receive basic rates of pay that are well below the levels advocated by the low pay unit? Is he further aware that, even after his helpful intervention with British Rail, a railwayman's basic rate of pay is now about £76? When the right hon. Gentleman next meets the chairman, will he do all he can to try to sort out the scandal of low pay in British Rail?

Mr. Ridley: The hon. Gentleman knows that the precise nature of the pay agreement between British. Rail and its employees is for the board to negotiate. Moreover, in this particular instance, the total of the cost of the pay award was proposed by the British Rail chairman, and the Government did not intervene. I am not saying that that is a rule on all such occasions, but in the particular instance to which the hon. Gentleman refers, there was no interference by the Government.

Mr. Gregory: In his forthcoming discussions with the chairman of British Rail, will my right hon. Friend look into the possibility that four of the six points relating to productivity that were discussed and agreed in principle with the unions in 1981 have still not been complied with and were not made a contractual part of recent negotiations?

Mr. Ridley: Despite reports in the press, the recent settlement included four points on productivity. The unions accepted the principle of driver-only operation on the Bedford-St. Pancras line. They accepted that British Rail would bring forward extensions of driver-only operation on passenger trains within the negotiating machinery with the aim of introducing them from 1985 onwards. They agreed to resume driver-only operation trials for freight trains between Willesden and Garston. They also agreed to resume negotiations on the extension of single manning on the footplate. Those substantial improvements in productivity were included in those negotiations.

Mrs. Dunwoody: As the Prime Minister has shown herself only too willing to intervene in the affairs of British Rail, will the Secretary of State ask her whether she would like to insist that, in future, railwaymen will not be required to work on average 12½ hours' overtime because of their appalling rates of pay, but that they should be paid at a rate that makes that unnecessary?

Mr. Ridley: We do not on the whole interfere in the details of pay negotiations. Such a question is rich from the hon. Lady, when the Government of whom she was a member controlled every detail through a statutory pay policy, with pay clauses, and who controlled pay in the nationalised industries by statute enacted by the House.

Mr. Forman: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is not only industrial relations questions that he is right to


discuss with the chairman of British Rail? Will he also discuss with him the apparent shortage of guards in that part of south London covering my constituency, which has caused many problems for rail travellers to and from my constituency?

Mr. Ridley: I note what my hon. Friend says, but perhaps he will agree that it would be better if he were to discuss that with the chairman of British Rail rather than me, if we are to maintain the proper relationship between the railways' responsibility and mine.

Mr. Prescott: Will the right hon. Gentleman comment on the fact that he has just laid before the House an order giving the chairmen of the nationalised bus and rail industries an increase from £50 a week to £95 a week, which should be compared with the average of £5 a week that he intervened to give British Rail workers?

Mr. Ridley: The hon. Gentleman will know that that is a simplistic point. He must discuss each increase on its merits. For instance, the chairman of British Rail had no increase at all. Some of the members of the boards to which he referred are working more days a week and others are being given an increase on merit because they perform very satisfactorily.

French TGV Trains

Mr. Adley: asked the Secretary of State for Transport if he will assess the performance achieved by, and investment involved in, the French TGV trains with a view to seeing what lessons can be learnt in the United Kingdom from French experience; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. David Mitchell: I have followed the development of the TGV with interest and I have travelled on it myself. But I believe the most cost-effective and successful way to improve high-speed rail travel in this country is fully to exploit our existing routes, rather than to build new ones.

Mr. Adley: Does my hon. Friend accept that if we had invested rather more on the APT than the one twentieth of the sum that the French have spent on the TGV we could have precisely what he suggests—a train that can travel at those speeds without having to build new railways? Are the Government planning to do anything to fund BR's investment programme in new technology?

Mr. Mitchell: That is a matter for British Rail. The APT will come into service shortly on an experimental basis. It should be remembered that BR runs more trains at over 100 miles an hour than does France.

Mr. Ron Lewis: When the experiment that the Minister talks about starts up, will he ensure that the train makes a number of stops between London and Glasgow, including Carlisle?

Mr. Mitchell: No, Sir. I should not wish to interfere in the detailed management of British Railways.

Rural Bus Services

Mr. Dobson: asked the Secretary of State for Transport what action he is taking to encourage the provision of rural bus services.

Mr. Ridley: I am giving weight to the need to improve rural transport in my current review of policy on road passenger transport. I hope to make an announcement shortly.

Mr. Dobson: Does the Secretary of State recognise that he will have an awful lot of encouraging to do if he is to return the number of bus-passenger miles in rural bus services to the 1979 levels, bearing in mind that the National Bus Company alone has reduced its bus-passenger miles by more than 90 million a year?

Mr. Ridley: The hon. Gentleman is wrong. It is the passengers who have reduced the number of bus-passenger miles, not the National Bus Company.

Oral Answers to Questions — ATTORNEY-GENERAL

Student Unions

Sir William van Straubenzee: asked the Attorney-General what recent representations he has received, following the issuing by him of guidance to higher education institutions about the limitations on the use of their student union's funds in the furtherance of political purposes, that the guidance is not being complied with; and if he will make a statement.

The Attorney-General (Sir Michael Havers): I have received a number of representations that expenditure has been incurred by student unions in breach of trust. These cases are being investigated. If the allegations are substantiated I shall consider whether to take legal proceedings against those responsible. I should add that if, as a result of such proceedings, the court finds that a breach of trust has occurred, it could hold those responsible for authorising the expenditure personally liable to repay the money and could order them to pay the costs of the proceedings.

Sir William van Straubenzee: I am obliged to my right hon. and learned Friend. Am I correct in understanding also that, assuming that payments are so made from a student union fund which is a charity, additionally it might be that those receiving money would be liable to repay it, knowing that it comes from a charitable source? Does my right hon. and learned Friend understand that he will have trenchant support for seeking to ensure that money given willingly by the ratepayer and taxpayer for educational purposes is not used to finance violence of the kind that we have seen this morning?

The Attorney-General: My right hon. Friend is right. Where breaches of trust are established it is open to me to take whatever action I consider appropriate to recover the money improperly applied. This may include tracing the money in the hands of any person who has wrongfully received it.

Mr. Dobson: Is the Attorney-General seriously suggesting that this is the highest priority for him and his staff? Would he not do better, for instance, attempting to track down the witness in the murder case at King's Cross who disappeared this time last year and has never been tracked down by his office——

Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not think that that has anything to do with the question.

The Attorney-General: There are no police offices involved in any of these investigations. They are entirely the responsibility of the Treasury Solicitor. This subject got first priority today because it was the first question.

Mr. Lawrence: Since what my right hon. and learned Friend said has been the law for a long time, and no doubt the care with which that law is enforced has also been observed for a long period of time, is it not somewhat remarkable that money should still be being voted by student unions to striking miners who are behaving unlawfully, and to such organisations as the English Collective of Prostitutes? Is it not clear that my right hon. and learned Friend is not doing enough to bring home to the leaders of student unions precisely what the state of their indebtedness will be if they carry on behaving as unlawfully as this?

The Attorney-General: It is perfectly right that I am not likely to know about breaches unless they are brought to my attention. Usually a breach is brought to my attention by a student. The guidelines that I published some time ago have been widely circulated. There is little more that I can do save say to my hon. and learned Friend that when these matters are reported to me, the Treasury Solicitor makes careful inquiry. A number of cases have received a lot of publicity in the past few weeks, and all are in the process of investigation.

Coal Industry Dispute

Mr. Canavan: asked the Attorney-General whether he will meet the Director of Public Prosecutions and chief constables to discuss criteria for prosecutions arising out of incidents during the miners' strike.

The Attorney-General: No, Sir. Offences of the kind so far involved do not have to be reported to the Director of Public Prosecutions, but I am confident that the police abide by the guidelines which I published last year describing the general criteria for prosecution. There are no special criteria for prosecution.

Mr. Canavan: In view of the grave public concern about the paramilitary behaviour of the police, such as in today's incident at Orgreave, will the Attorney-General confirm that the policing strategy to be used during the dispute was decided well in advance at a meeting held way back in February between himself, the Home Secretary and the chief constables? Is it not about time that this Tory Government stopped using the police for the blatant political purpose of waging a vendetta against the National Union of Mineworkers?

The Attorney-General: I attended no such meeting. The hon. Gentleman speaks of paramilitary behaviour, but those of use who listened to "The World at One" today heard of 5,000 so-called pickets. They are not. They are demonstrators and rioters. At the end of this incident, the whole road was littered with lumps of concrete, stones, bottles, and bricks taken from a wall demolished by the people whom the hon. Gentleman supports. If that is what he considers unfair treatment by the police, the hon. Gentleman should think again and realise that the paramilitary behaviour, which is military behaviour when it should not be, comes from those whom he supports, not from the police.

Mr. Nicholls: In any talk about guidelines and criteria, will my right hon. and learned Friend remember that the

recommendation of the National Union of Mineworkers and the TUC on the number of pickets necessary to constitute a peaceful picket is six, and not 6,000, as are being used at the moment in the sort of incident about which we have heard complaints?

The Attorney-General: My hon. Friend is right. Six is a reasonable number. I remind the House of what is the right of a picket—to obtain or communicate information or seek to persuade a man not to go through the line. That is all. What we have seen today, and today is perhaps one of the worst occasions that we have had, is so far removed from that that even the thought contained in the rule that has just been expressed by my hon. Friend is made nonsense of by what is going on on the front line, as it has now become.

Mr. Spearing: Is the Attorney-General satisfied that the action taken by the Kent police at the Dartford tunnel some time ago was within the guidelines to which he has just referred? If the people concerned had persisted in going through the tunnel, under what charge would they have been prosecuted?

The Attorney-General: If they had persisted in going through the tunnel, they would have been arrested for obstructing the police in the course of their duty. Whether that was a proper distance from the pits or not is not a matter for me, but for the courts, if they have to decide it.

Mr. Ashby: Are not the large numbers of people who have been assembling riotously, as they did today, the real problem? Should we not re-enact something like the Riot Act, which dealt with the problem of large assemblies and dispersing them? Is that not the right way to deal with the problem?

The Attorney-General: In September 1982 the Law Commission recommended a new type of unlawful assembly, which was to be divided into three parts, ranging from the very serious one, with behaviour such as that which obviously occurred today, down to a lesser degree, and in particular giving the option of trial by magistrates if it were agreed by both sides. One of the problems about the more serious offences of riot and unlawful assembly is that they can be tried only on indictment and therefore there is a considerable delay before the cases are heard.

Mr. Alex Carlile: Will the Attorney-General advise the Prime Minister that one of the likely consequences of the present serious situation will be a series of long, acrimonious and divisive court cases arising from the miners' strike, and will he also advise her that the time has now passed for covert Government intervention and that we have reached a stage at which overt Government conciliation of the dispute should take place?

The Attorney-General: If what the hon. and learned Gentleman is suggesting is that, because this is criminal conduct involved in an industrial dispute, there should be a different mode of dealing with it, I disagree. As to the remainder of his question, that does not fall within my remit as Attorney-General.

Mr. Spencer: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, in the light of the worst violence yet at Orgreave, the only thing to be done with the criminal law is to enforce it?

The Attorney-General: The enforcing must be left initially to the police. There is no way in which the Government or any other Department should seek to influence the police as to how they conduct their operations on the ground. Once they have arrested it is a matter for the courts, but I think that it is very much to the credit of the police that, in the 12 to 13 weeks that this has been going on, the number of arrests overall in 20 different police forces amounts to fewer than 3,000.

Mr. John Morris: Can the Attorney-General explain his role in the Government's preparation for the miners' strike? Was he consulted by the Secretary of State for Transport in the instruction given to the chairman of British Rail to avoid approaching the Attorney-General's office? What part of his duties could conceivably arise in connection with the instructions of the Secretary of State for Transport?

The Attorney-General: I shared the right hon. and learned Gentleman's surprise when I read that passage, and I had inquiries made. There is a simple answer. The remit of the Attorney-General does not allow him to advise students, any private organisation, or even nationalised industries, and this had been made clear at a previous meeting. Therefore, although badly worded, the intention was, "Do not think that you can go and get the advice of the Law Officers—they are not entitled to give it to you." What appeared so sinister was in fact as simple as that.

Judiciary (Training)

Mr. Spencer: asked the Attorney-General if he is satisfied with present arrangements for training both full-time and part-time members of the judiciary in their judicial functions.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Patrick Mayhew): It is thought that a suitable foundation has now been laid for the training of all full-time and part-time judges of the crown court. There is an unmet need for formalised training of those who sit in the civil and family jurisdictions. This is at present under consideration.

Mr. Spencer: Can my right hon. and learned Friend give us an idea of when the present system will be extended to civil and matrimonial courts?

The Solicitor-General: The Judicial Studies Board, which has been in existence for slightly more than four years, has so far concentrated upon the criminal jurisdiction. It is too early to say when my right hon. and noble Friend the Lord Chancellor will extend it to civil and matrimonial matters. The matter is under consideration, but at the moment I cannot be more helpful.

Oral Answers to Questions — OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

Grenada

Mr. Spearing: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what progress has been made in improving public water and electricity supplies in Grenada with aid from the United Kingdom.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Ray Whitney): My right hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development is attending a meeting abroad, and is sorry that he is unable to be present. I have been asked to reply.
Projects worth £180,000 and £185,000 have been approved for spare parts for the electricity sector and the water sector respectively. A further power project for the supply and installation of a new diesel engine has also been agreed at an estimated cost of over £300,000.

Mr. Spearing: I thank the Minister for that information, but does he agree that there has been some delay in these matters, and will he examine it? Does he also agree that, in the aftermath of disaster or war, the restoration of public water supplies and electricity supplies is always, or often, a priority? Is not Britain in a good technical position to assist with that, and should not his Department or the Overseas Development Administration be geared up to deal with this as a first priority?

Mr. Whitney: I well understand the concern of the hon. Gentleman, and I assure him that the overseas development division in Barbados has given the highest priority to the part that it can play in the restoration of water and electricity supplies. Indeed, the overseas development division has paid no fewer than 15 visits during the past six months. The progress that it can make depends also on co-operation with the local authorities.

Mr. Bowen Wells: Is it not a fact that the contract for the replacement of the No. 7 engine in the power station in Grenada, which was out of action at the time of the intervention in October, has still not been put out to tender, and a firm order has not yet been placed for it? Through this delay, and through the Overseas Development Administration insisting on its full tendering system, the price of that replacement engine to Grenada has thereby been increased, thus making the Grenada power supply much less secure in the very insecure situation in the island, and putting up the price of electricity in the long run? Surely this is an occasion when the ODA should have acted much more swiftly and effectively?

Mr. Whitney: I understand my hon. Friend's concern. The project for the No. 7 generator has, indeed, been the subject of careful negotiations. Detailed specifications have been drawn up and tender documents are being prepared. I understand that the new engine will be commissioned towards the end of 1984.

Aid

Mr. Chapman: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what proportion of United Kingdom Government's overseas aid goes direct to recipient countries; and what proportion goes via international or multinational agencies.

Mr. Whitney: In 1983, 59 per cent. of British aid was given bilaterally, mostly on a Government-to-Government basis, and 41 per cent. went through multilateral institutions.

Mr. Chapman: Does my hon. Friend agree that, in the generality of these things, it is far more effective for British aid to be given after direct negotiations with the Government of the recipient country than through multinational agencies? If that is so, and bearing in mind the fact that there is a role for British aid through such


agencies, does my hon. Friend agree that it would be greatly to the benefit of recipient countries if aid was provided direct?

Mr. Whitney: In general we wish to give priority to our bilateral aid programmes, but, as my hon. Friend will recognise, we have extensive multilateral commitments.

Mr. Rhodes James: Is my hon. Friend aware that my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman) is totally wrong?

Mr. Whitney: It is difficult for me to enter into a debate between my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James) and my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman). However, it is true that we get good returns on bilateral aid and on multilateral aid. As is revealed by my hon. Friend's question, the computation of those returns is a somewhat complex art.

Mr. Stuart Holland: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if, following the discussions on economic recovery at the London summit, he intends to bring about any changes in the volume or the use of British aid.

Mr. Whitney: The Government's current plans for the aid programme take account of the global economic situation. We shall continue to explore ways by which aid can make a more effective contribution to solving the problems facing developing countries.

Mr. Holland: By that, does the Minister mean that "the global economic situation" explains what is meant by "wherever possible" in the post-summit communiqué, which declared the intention
to maintain and wherever possible increase flows of resources, including official development assistance"?
Is he aware that increasing official development assistance to 0·7 per cent. of gross domestic product would be of almost inestimable value to the South and could create 2 million jobs in the OECD countries? Was the Prime Minister among those who wished to activate a common fund for commodities? If not, why not?

Mr. Whitney: The hon. Gentleman goes down familiar paths. The important thing that has been agreed at the summit and in previous ones, including those attended by the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Callaghan) when he was Prime Minister, is that the key to recovery is keeping public expenditure under control so that the recovery of national economies will permit an increase in world trade. The vital significance of world trade for developing economies should be recognised by all of us. The hon. Gentleman will understand that we have not abandoned the aspiration to the 0·7 per cent. target, but he will remember that the Labour Government remained well short of that target as well.

Mr. Holland: rose——

Mr. Speaker: No.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Would not economic recovery in the Third world be helped more if, instead of increasing

the percentage of aid, the Government tried to persuade the EEC to stop spending £100 million a week on dumping food on the world market, thereby depriving Third world countries of a decent and fair return on their agricultural produce?

Mr. Whitney: My hon. Friend will be aware of the significant efforts of my right hon. Friends to reform the budget and, as part of it, the common agricultural policy.

Mr. Tom Clarke: Bearing in mind that this is a familiar road, did the Government say at the summit when they expected to achieve the 0·7 per cent. target? If not, will the Minister tell us now?

Mr. Whitney: No, Sir. As I said in reply to the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Holland), it is important to restore the economies of the developed and developing world. I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that, for many years, Britain has exceeded the United Nations target of joint private and official aid flows of more than 1 per cent. of gross national product.

IDA and World Bank (Resources)

Mr. Jackson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether the resources available to the International Development Association and the regional affiliates of the World Bank are adequate for their immediate requirements; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Whitney: In the Government's view, the seventh replenishment of IDA's funds at a level of US $9 billion which has just been approved by the World Bank executive board, is inadequate to meet the needs of poor countries and we have indicated our willingness to contribute to supplementary funding to bring the total nearer the $12 billion which most donors thought appropriate.

Mr. Jackson: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Does he agree that the Government deserve congratulations on the part that they have played in endeavouring to ensure that loan finance is provided on an expanded basis through the IDA to the most needy parts of the Third world?

Mr. Whitney: I am happy to accept those congratulations and I shall certainly pass them on to my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Budgen: Would a common fund for commodities be rather like the CAP on a world-wide basis?

Mr. Whitney: My hon. Friend points to a danger of which all of us who are considering the project should be well aware.

Mr. Bowen Wells: On what conditions will Britain make the additional money available to IDA? Is it contingent upon the contribution of the United States and other countries?

Mr. Whitney: The supplementary fund is a matter for negotiation. We are closely in touch with all other donors, especially Japan and the Federal Republic of Germany. I think that, at this stage, I can go no further than that.

Mr. Speaker's Statement (Members' Complaint)

Mr. Speaker: I have a brief statement to make. I have to inform the House that my attention has been drawn by three hon. Members, namely, the hon. Members for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel), for Ilford, South (Mr. Thorne) and for Surbiton (Mr. Tracey) to words spoken by the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) during the debate on the Greater London Council (Money) (No. 2) Bill on Tuesday 12 June indicating an intention to restrict the provision of new services in the constituencies of any Members m the Greater London council area who voted in favour of the instruction to the Committee on the Bill standing on the Order Paper in the name of the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Sir A. Berry).
I am satisfied that this is a matter to which I ought to allow precedence: and accordingly the hon. Member for Twickenham, whose letter of complaint was received first, may table a motion at the commencement of public business tomorrow and which the House will decide.

Mr. Harry Greenway: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: No point of order can arise on my statement. Is it a different point of order?

Mr. Greenway: You will remember, Mr. Speaker, that towards the end of the last Parliament the leader of the GLC made similar remarks to those——

Mr. Speaker: Order. I said that there can be no point of order on the matter. I have made a statement on it.

Social Security Benefits (Uprating)

The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. Norman Fowler): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the annual uprating of social security benefits which will take effect in November. Under the Social Security and Housing Benefits Act 1983, I am required to review the level of various benefits each year, having regard to the movement in the general level of prices in the 12 months up to 31 May. The retail price index for May was published last Friday and it showed a rise of 5·1 per cent. in the year May 1983 to May 1984.
As the House will know, the Government are pledged to maintain the value of pensions. Accordingly, those benefits which are revalued by the increase in the retail price index will rise by 5·1 per cent. This increase will apply not only to the pledged benefits but to the unpledged benefits, like unemployment benefit.
The 5·1 per cent. increase compares with the forecast of inflation of 4·5 per cent. for the last quarter of the year when the uprating will take place. This means that the historic method of uprating—which was introduced to replace the inaccurate forecast method of the last Government — has worked fairly for pensioners and other beneficiaries.
Supplementary benefit is increased by the rise in the retail price index, less housing costs, which are paid in full. This gives a figure of 4·7 per cent. and, again, this will be paid in full.
I should like to mention briefly the main groups who will benefit from the increases in November. First, pensioners. The standard basic rate of pension for retirement pensioners will go up to £35·80 for a single person and £57·30 for a married couple. This means that between November 1978 and November 1984, pensions will have risen by 83·6 per cent. compared with an expected rise in prices of 76·4 per cent. We will also be taking a further step towards the abolition of the pensioner's earnings rule by increasing the limit by 7·7 per cent. from £65 to £70 a week.
Secondly, the standard rates of unemployment benefit will be increased to £28–45 for a single person and £46 for a married couple. I also propose to change the basis of payment of unemployment benefit so that from later this financial year all new claimants will be paid fortnightly in arrears instead of one week in advance and one in arrears, as at present. This change will not affect the amount of unemployment benefit properly paid to claimants, but it will cut out overpayments that are caused now by people returning to work during the advance payment period.
Thirdly, to help families, child benefit will be increased to £6·85, and one-parent benefit to £4·25. This means that both benefits remain at their highest ever level in real terms. For families in work, the family income supplement prescribed amounts are being raised to £90 for a family with one child, and the maximum payment for a family with one child will go up to £23. Families receiving family income supplement will also gain from the increase in child benefit. I am, however, proposing that changes in the prescribed amounts should, like all other changes in circumstances, be taken into account only when a new


family income supplement award is made. As from November, therefore, the increases in these amounts will apply only to new awards.
Fourthly, the long-term scale rate of supplementary benefit will go up to £35·70 for a single householder and £57·10 for a married couple. The ordinary rates for short-term and unemployed claimants under 60 will go up to £28·05 for a single householder and £45·55 for a couple. The scale rates for children will go up by 4.7 per cent. Heating additions will be increased in line with the rise in fuel prices since May 1983, which was 3·2 per cent.
I also propose to make a significant further extension in the scope of age-related heating additions. At present these are paid automatically only to supplementary pensioners over 70. From November, these will, for the first time, become payable automatically at the basic rate of £2·10 a week to householder claimants or their dependants between 65 and 70. Also for the first time, the higher rate of heating addition of £5·20 a week will be paid automatically to householder claimants or their dependants over 85.
I also intend to make a change in the "available scale margin" from November. The available scale margin is the amount which is deducted from certain additional requirements of claimants on the long-term rate of supplementary benefit. It was first introduced in 1966 by the then Labour Government and was intended to reflect the fact that the long-term scale rates should cover nearly all additional needs. At that time it was 45p—the then difference between the long-term and short-term scale rates--and it has been changed only once since then, to 50p in 1968, even though the difference between the long and short-term scales will now stand at £7·65.
It is anomalous that the available scale margin has been maintained at 50p for so long, and I propose both to make a 50p increase in its amount and to apply it again to heating additions, which were originally within its scope. The exemption in respect of children's needs, including their heating needs, will, however, continue and will now be extended to cover children's laundry needs and boarding-out fees.
Fifthly, the housing benefit needs allowances will be going up by 4·8 per cent., apart from those for children, which will be raised by 50p more than is required to maintain their value, giving an increase of 8 per cent. The other changes already announced will take place in November, except that the increases in thresholds for high rent schemes which were due to take effect then will now be deferred until April 1985.
Lastly, public service pensions will be increased by 5·1 per cent.; so also will benefits for disabled people and war pensioners. Mobility allowance will rise to a new rate of £20. This will be exactly double the rate we inherited on taking office and will represent an increase in real terms of almost 11 per cent. since then. The war pensioners' mobility supplement will be increased to £22·25 a week and the 100 per cent. disability pension will go up to £58·40 a week.
All war widows' pensions will be increased in line with prices, but I am glad to say that I am able to make a real improvement for the older war widows, most of whom were widowed during the world wars. I shall be increasing the age allowances they receive at age 65 to £5 a week, and at age 70 to £10 a week—increases of over 15 per cent. I shall also be introducing a new rate of £12·50 for the oldest war widows—those aged over 80.
The improvements that we are making—which are within the Government's public expenditure plans published last February — will increase the social security budget by over £1.6 billion in a full year.
The new benefit rates will take effect from the week commencing 26 November. I should make it clear that we intend that the uprating should always take place in the last week in November. Because the year is not divisible exactly into 52 weeks it means that every five or six years there is a 53-week gap between upratings unless the uprating date is to creep forward. This problem was recognised and legislated for in the Social Security Act 1980.
Even so, that timetable for implementation is still very tight. It is a tribute to the staff of my Department that it was achieved on time last year, but I must warn the House that if the strike action which is being carried out by a small number of staff in the Department's computer centre at Newcastle continues, payment of the higher benefits could be delayed.
Details of the proposed new rates, together with some minor beneficial improvements, are set out in a schedule which, for the convenience of the House, I have placed in the Vote Office and is included in the Official Report. I shall shortly lay before the House for approval the draft orders and regulations which give effect to the main uprating proposals and at the same time I shall table the usual report from the Government Actuary on the estimated effects of the changes on the national insurance fund.
All told, the improvements that we are making will increase the social security budget to £39 billion a year. Almost one third of all public spending is now being devoted to social security. At the same time, the Government's success in controlling inflation means that occupational pension and other savings now better maintain their value. In this uprating we have ensured that the basic rates of all the major benefits are fully price-protected and we have targeted the resources available to those in greatest need, such as the very elderly.

Mr. Michael Meacher: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that once again he has demonstrated that under this Government there is one law for the rich and another for the poor? To raise pensions in line with inflation will add precisely £1·75 a week to the single pension. Three months ago the Chancellor of the Exchequer, by abolishing the unearned income surcharge, gratuitously handed out an average extra £26 a week in tax relief to each of 250,000 very rich shareholders. Under this Government, to him that hath shall be given much more, while the poor will have to put up with the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the principle underlying the upratings—indexing merely in line with inflation—is a mean and ungenerous one compared with the Labour Government's uprating in line with prices or earnings, whichever was the higher? Will he acknowledge that, by backtracking on Labour's formula, the Tory Government have so far shortchanged the single pensioner by £2·90 a week and the married pensioner by £4·85 a week? That is the measure of the amount that pensioners have lost under the Government.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that even his predecessor, the Secretary of State for the Environment, if he still is, regarded mere price indexing as mean and inadequate? Indeed, he said that
it remains the Government's firm intention that pensioners and other long-term beneficiaries can confidently look forward to sharing in the increased standards of living of the country as a whole."—[Official Report, 13 June 1979; Vol. 968, c. 439.]
That promise stands broken. Under the five years of the previous Labour Government, pensioners were given a real 20 per cent. increase in the value of their pensions, whereas in the past five years of the Tory Government they have had only a tiny real increase.
Is the Secretary of State aware that, apart from the inflation indexing of pensions, the real meaning of his statement is that yet again a tiny amount of extra funds is being made available to certain very small groups of beneficiaries, while at the same time very much larger sums are being cut from vastly bigger groups in receipt of benefit?
Is the Secretary of State aware in particular—this is a very important point—[Interruption.] Pensioners will regard it as a very important point. Is the Secretary of State aware that the deferring of the uprating by one week next November has cheated pensioners of £60 million to which they are entitled, and that that is a far bigger sum than the total of all the new benefits that he is now introducing?
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that paying new unemployment benefit claimants, for the first time, fortnightly in arrears is a further unnecessary and mean hardship for the unemployed, which will severely and unfairly penalise tens of thousands of them? As the Secretary of State has now forced open—he has done it more than anyone — the difference between the long-term and short-term benefit scales to a massive £7·65 a week, as he admitted, why is he increasing the available scale margin by only a paltry 50p to £1?
Is the Secretary of State aware that there is a series of omissions from the statement which intensifies the pressure on those in poverty in Britain today, who now stand, according to the Government's own figures, at 9 million? That is 9 million in poverty in Britain today under this Government, or one in six of the whole population.
Why is there no mention in the statement of restoring to those on sickness benefit, and to those in receipt of invalidity benefit and maternity allowance, the 5 per cent. abatement of benefit which the Government so callously stole from them three years ago?
Why is there no mention of raising the £4 earnings disregard, which, if it had been restored to its real value the last time it was raised, would today be worth £11·40?
When will the Government raise the measly £30 death grant, which would be £210 today if it had kept pace with inflation since 1949?
Why has child benefit, which replaced the child tax allowance, been increased by only 5 per cent.—far less than the 12·5 per cent. Budget increase in tax allowances? How can it possibly be justified to worsen the position of children and the families of the unemployed compared with children in better-off families where the parents remain in work?
Is the Secretary of State aware that the Minister for Social Security, four days ago, as reported in Hansard, listed no fewer than 25 benefits which had fallen in real

terms since 1979? Why has the Secretary of State not honoured the pledge, of which he made so much, to keep those benefits in line with inflation?
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State admitted, in a written answer on 18 November 1982, that by that date this Government had made cuts of £1,500 million in social security? Is the Secretary of State aware that since that date further cuts, in the form of the changed uprating method, the chopping of housing benefit, and the continued shortfall to the pensioners, which we are seeing again today, compared with the rise in earnings, have raised the cuts immposed by the Government on the poor to £3,500 million? Is he aware that those huge cuts are not only fundamentally unjustified in principle, but that it is iniquitous that those cuts on the poor have in practice been used to finance enormous and unwarranted tax handouts for the rich?

Mr. Fowler: The hon. Gentleman's response was exactly what we would expect from him—in short, most of it was arrant nonsense.
The hon. Gentleman talked about shortchanging the pensioners. I have to remind him that he was a member of a Government who, because of the change from the historic to the forecast method, managed to defraud pensioners of about £500 million a year. I must also remind the hon. Gentleman that the Government to which he was a member presided over a rate of inflation of 110 per cent., which was devastatingly bad news for pensioners.
This is the third uprating statement for which inflation has been in single figures. Since 1978 pensions have risen by 83·6 per cent., compared to an RPI increase of 76·4 per cent. that is the record, and the hon. Gentleman does himself no justice in ignoring it. He may wish to withdraw and to reconsider his remarks on the available scale margin, as he does not seem to understand what he is calling for.
The hon. Gentleman says that we are shortchanging and that this is a mean measure. We are increasing spending by £1·6 billion, which means that the total spending on social security is about £39 billion. It means that benefits will increase in November by 5·1 per cent., compared to a 4·5 per cent. inflation rate in the autumn.
There are further changes which we must consider and which we want to look at in relation to the capital cut-off and the disregard, to which the hon. Gentleman referred. That is why we have set up a far-reaching series of inquiries into the whole of the social security budget. The hon. Gentleman has not understood our proposals with regard to the payment of unemployment benefit in arrears. No one will lose entitlement by what is proposed.
It was well understood at the time of the 1980 legislation what was proposed in relation to the uprating date. We have made it clear, and I am making it clear again today, that we want to uprate each year, in the last week in November. The hon. Gentleman may recall that in Committee the right hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme) suggested that a specific date could be given and that payments could be made around that date. That is precisely what we are doing. The uprating is fair, and I entirely reject the hon. Gentleman's attack.

Mr. Roger Sims: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his prompt statement will be warmly received


on the Conservative Benches and also outside the House? We particularly welcome the way in which he has understood and reacted to the special problems of elderly war widows. We further welcome his treatment of those below the age of 70 who need a heating allowance. Does my right hon. Friend recall the strong campaign that emerged from the Opposition when he changed the basis on which benefits were calculated? Can he confirm that recipients have not been disadvantaged by the changes that he has made?

Mr. Fowler: Yes, Sir. That was the case that I put when we changed the basis of the uprating and moved to the historic method from the forecast method. I said then that it was a fair change. It has been established to everyone's satisfaction that that has been its effect. The improvements in pensions for war widows mean that about 50,000 war widows will benefit. I believe that hon. Members on both sides of the House will welcome that.

Mr. Frank Field: As the increase in child benefit is significantly below the increase in personal tax allowances, and as that will result in an increased relative tax burden for families, both rich and poor, which was against the specific pledges given by the Conservative party at the 1979 and 1983 general elections, and as it reverses the gains made by the Secretary of State in last year's review, can he tell us what argument the Chancellor of the Exchequer put forward in vetoing his lobbying for a full 12 per cent. increase?

Mr. Fowler: The hon. Gentleman can better even my arguments on the subject. Child benefit and, indeed, one-parent family benefit are at the highest ever level in real terms. They are even higher than the level to which the previous Labour Government managed to bring them. I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman's views on this subject and I share his aim to get help to the poorest families in this country. That is why we have set up an inquiry and are considering how to help young people and children.
Over the lifetime of this Government there have been comparable increases in child benefit and personal tax allowances. They have been roughly the same. Between April 1979 and November 1984 child benefit will have increased by 71·3 per cent., while personal tax allowances will have increased by 72·1 per cent. for single people and 73·8 per cent. for married couples. Therefore, there is rough equality of treatment. However, we shall look further at that area.

Mr. Jim Lester: I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and welcome the fact that he has sought ways of improving the position of widows in particular. However, in view of what he has just said about wanting to help the poorest in our community, I should point out that there is grave disappointment on this side of the House at the fact that the poorest in the community—the long-term employed living on short-term benefit—have not been helped and that there has been no move towards assisting them.
My right hon. Friend can take it from me that the many letters that I have received from all over the country show that the most disadvantaged people are those trying to live on a long-term basis on short-term benefit. The descriptions speak for themselves. The Government have already accepted the principle for the over-60s, and I

assure my right hon. Friend that the situation is worse for the over-50s and worse still for those with families. Will he assure us that he understands the position and that it will be given high priority in the Government's thinking during the next 12 months?

Mr. Fowler: I understand my hon. Friend's concern and campaign on this subject. An extension to the unemployed would cost around an extra £500 million a year on present estimates. However, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Newton), will be looking at that point, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester) will give evidence to the inquiry.

Mr. John Cartwright: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that his extension of the scope of age-related heating benefits will be widely welcomed but that there will be some disappointment at the size of the increases? For example, 5p a week extra on central heating additions is hardly generous, given current fuel price rises. Does the right hon. Gentleman also accept that some supplementary benefit recipients who have expensive heating systems are denied estate rate heating additions, simply because they pay their heating bills along with their rent to their landlords? Will he look at that anomaly, which gives rise to a lot of resentment on many council estates?

Mr. Fowler: I shall consider the hon. Gentleman's last point. This year we expect to spend about £400 million on heating additions, and that is even taking account of the available scale margin changes which I have announced. That means about £140 million more in real terms than under the Labour Government. The benefits have been uprated because of fuel price rises, and that is only fair. The real increase in aid which the Government have given during their term of office speaks for itself.

Several Hon. Members: rose——

Mr. Speaker: Order. In view of the important debate to follow, in which many right hon. and hon. Members wish to take part, I propose to allow questions on the statement to continue until 4·15 pm. If questions are kept short, most hon. Members should be able to get in.

Mr. Timothy Yeo: I very much welcome my right hon. Friend's statement, but is he aware that we are genuinely concerned about the worst-off? Will he undertake to examine with our right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer before next year's Budget the most cost-effective way of dealing with those who fall into the poverty trap? Will he bear in mind that he should not be deterred from raising child benefit, despite the fact that it increases public expenditure, if that should turn out to be the best way of tackling the problem?

Mr. Fowler: I do not wish to go into the merits of child benefit now, but the whole purpose of the inquiries is to look at precisely that area. That is why we have set them up.

Mr. Terry Davis: Has the Secretary of State forgotten that when in opposition the Conservative party promised to increase child benefit in line with any increases in personal tax allowances, without any reservations about inquiries, discussions with the Chancellor of the Exchequer or historic statistics? Will he confirm that if that promise had been kept child benefit


would have been increased this year by 80p instead of 50p per week? Will he explain why the Conservatives have broken their promise to every parent in the country?

Mr. Fowler: The Conservative Government have not broken their promise of every parent in the country. Such an accusation comes ill from the hon. Gentleman when we are paying child benefit at a rate higher in real terms than that paid by the last Labour Government. If the hon. Gentleman were to examine the figures that I gave earlier for personal tax allowances and child benefit, he would see that the two are comparable.

Mr. James Couchman: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement that the earnings disregard for those over retirement age will be raised by more than the inflation rate. Can he speculate on the possibility of abolishing the earnings limit for pensioners who continue in full-time work?

Mr. Fowler: That is the aim and intention. We want to work towards that.

Mr. Stuart Bell: Does the Secretary of State accept the serious disppointment that will be caused because the Government have not seen fit to increase the death grant? That is especially disappointing, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget created a disincentive to taking out life assurance contracts by abolishing the tax relief on premiums. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that hon. Members on both sides of the House receive large quantities of mail about the death grant? Will the grant be reviewed?

Mr. Fowler: The death grant is being reviewed. We issued a consultation document putting forward a number of ways in which the death grant could be changed and the aid available go to families most in need. That document was not universally welcomed. We have to look at the problem again. It is being considered.

Mr. Nigel Forman: I welcome the continuation of full price protection for pensioners and others on related benefits. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the combination of the historic method of calculation and the falling inflation rate leaves pensioners and others better off year on year?

Mr. Fowler: Yes. The historic method of uprating is fair. We said that during the election and when we introduced it. The public can now see for themselves that it works fairly for all beneficiaries.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: What does the Secretary of State intend to do about the earnings disregard for those who are unemployed or in receipt of supplementary benefit, since one of the disregards has been fixed at £4 for a considerable number of years? When will the inquiry initiated by the Minister for Social Security on fuel allowances be completed? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the difficulty experienced by those who are disadvantaged by living in colder climes?

Mr. Fowler: I sympathise with what the hon. Gentleman has said about the earnings disregard. We shall see whether that can be improved and the position changed. I shall discuss the hon. Gentleman's second point with my hon. Friend.

Mr. Patrick Cormack: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, although his statement will be warmly welcomed, many of my constituents who have saved hard but have been put out of work in their fifties believe that their thrift is being penalised? Last year he did something modest to help them. Why has he done nothing this year?

Mr. Fowler: I have increased the capital cut-off. The matter is under consideration by the inquiry into supplementary benefit. I have sympathy with the argument about thrift. We shall seek to make progress and give it urgent attention in the reviews.

Mr. David Young: How much money do the Government hope to save by making the unemployment payment two weeks in arrears? Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that that will have a traumatic effect on the newly unemployed? Is he aware that the Government have deprived 4 million people of the right to work? Is it the Government's policy that the least well-off should subsidise those in work?

Mr. Fowler: No one will lose entitlement to benefit. The savings are based upon estimates. In a full year, savings in unemployment benefit will be about £8·5 million. I stress that that is an estimate. Our survey shows that two-thirds of claimants had two weeks' or more wages when they finished work. That is one reason why we have moved to a more logical and more defensible system of paying benefit, and which is more general throughout western Europe.

Mr. Tony Favell: In the review will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the growing feeling in the country that to pay the same amount of child benefit to the best off as to the worst off is socially unjust?

Mr. Fowler: I have heard that view expressed before. Child benefit and benefits for young people are being examined. My hon. Friend's view is not the only view on the subject. We shall need to take time to consider the other arguments.

Mr. Alex Carlile: When does the Secretary of State propose to take steps to redeem an obvious injustice by extending the invalid care allowance to married women? What advice does he have to give to the many families who are poor because of the failure to increase child benefit, despite the informed advice of bodies such as the Child Poverty Action Group?

Mr. Fowler: I have nothing to add on child benefit. We are increasing child benefit, and have already increased it to an all-time record amount. I have no further plans to improve invalid care allowance, but we shall keep it under review.

Mr. Bowen Wells: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his excellent package for uprating benefits. May I suggest that perhaps next year he should try not increasing benefits, for the parliamentary benefit of the Opposition, from whom he would hear precisely the same comments as we heard today? May we be assured that he will abolish the earnings rule for pensioners next year?

Mr. Fowler: I cannot give a guarantee that I shall abolish the earnings rule next year. However, it is the Government's aim to abolish the rule. We have made that clear. We shall do it as soon as we can afford to.

Mr. David Winnick: Why should the unemployed, who are being punished as a result of the Government's economic policy, be denied the long-term supplementary rate when they have been unemployed for 12 months or more? Will the Secretary of State bear in mind the hardship of retired people who live on limited incomes, but who are not eligible for supplementary benefit? Can heating assistance be given to such people, especially if they receive rebates on rents or rates? Do the Government intend to assist pensioners with their television licences if the licence fee is increased? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the concern among many retired people that they will have to pay more than they can afford for their television licence?

Mr. Fowler: Television licence assistance is not a matter for me. I have already made clear my position on the capital disregard. Making the long-term supplementary benefit available to the unemployed would cost around an extra £500 million — a substantial sum. We shall examine the case for making the change, but against that cost context.

Mr. Richard Tracey: My right hon. Friend is to be congratulated on his statement. His words will be warmly received by old people. Will he remind the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) that the last Labour Government took away the old-age pensioners' Christmas bonus? Does my right hon. Friend agree that, judged in that light, the hon. Gentleman's words are hollow hypocrisy?

Mr. Fowler: The words of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) are certainly hollow. That comes as a surprise to no one. The last Labour Government suspended the Christmas bonus, which had an effect on pensioners, whose cause the hon. Member for Oldham, West now tries to espouse.

Mr. Ken Eastham: The Secretary of State said that there would be additions to heating allowances. Is he aware that the Child Poverty Action Group in Manchester has advised us that hundreds of families are already waiting for existing allowances and for local DHSS offices to make assessments? In my constituency about 1,900 families are waiting for heating allowances. Discounting the additions announced today, will the Minister do something to keep local offices manned properly? They are overworked and undermanned.

Mr. Fowler: I shall consider the matter raised by the hon. Gentleman. I do not accept his general point, but I shall look into his specific local problem.

Mr. Patrick Nicholls: Is my right hon. Friend aware that while the indexing of retirement pensions is welcome, many Conservative Members look forward to the time when it will not simply be indexed, but will be raised to another level from which it can be indexed? Is he also aware of the sense of lingering injustice of the old-age pension, in that even if it keeps

pace with inflation it provides only for the basics of life, instead of for luxuries, which people in their twilight years are entitled to expect?

Mr. Fowler: We are examining the whole question of pension provision, including the occupational pension provisions. For pensioners, one of the most significant points is that this is the third successive year of single-figure inflation. Low inflation is perhaps the best way in which the Government can look after the interests of pensioners.

Mr. Allen McKay: Will the Secretary of State tell the House why unemployment pay which was being received by ancillary workers and others in the mining industry during the present dispute has been stopped, as I understand it on his instructions?

Mr. Fowler: I need to consider the particular point that the hon. Gentleman has in mind. If he wishes to give me the details, I shall do that.

Mr. Meacher: Will the Secretary of State answer two questions which he did not answer earlier? Although child benefit may be marginally higher in real terms — by about 10p—will the right hon. Gentleman recognise that that does not compensate for the cut of about £1·70 a week in child dependency additions which the Government have imposed? Will he acknowledge that child support benefits overall have fallen substantially under this Government, and that that is the background to this lower-than-expected, and lower-than-required increase in child benefit?
Will the Secretary of State spell out the total annual value of the new arrangements or of the increases other than inflation indexing? Will he confirm that that is probably less than £10 million, which compares with the £60 million cut achieved by deferring the pension uprating by one week from November?

Mr. Fowler: I cannot give the exact figure for the hon. Gentleman's last question. As I have already made clear, the increase in spending announced today is about £1·6 billion—it is no use the hon. Gentleman shaking his head—which is a substantial sum of money, which must be financed. That shows the Government's social commitment.
For child dependency additions, the hon. Gentleman will know that it has been our policy to rely more on child benefit and to take that into account for any increase in long-term child dependency additions. We are doing that. However, nothing hides the fact, which the hon. Gentleman seeks to avoid, that under this Government child benefit has increased to its highest ever point in history—above any sum which the hon. Gentleman provided when he was at the Department of Health and Social Security.

Following are the new rates

Main Increased Contributory and Non-Contributory Benefit Rates



Existing weekly rate
Proposed weekly rate



£
£


Child Benefit


Each Child
6·50
6·85


One parent benefit


First or only child of certain lone persons
4·05
4·25


Standard rate of retirement* and widows' pensions, and widowed mothers' allowance


Single person
34·05
35·80


Wife or other adult dependant
20·45
21·50


Earnings limit for retirement pensioners
65·00
70·00


Standard rate of invalidity pension


Single person
32·60
34·25


Spouse or other adult dependant
19·55
20·55


Invalidity allowance


Higher rate
7·15
7·50


Middle rate
4·60
4·80


Lower rate
2·30
2·40


Standard rate of unemployment benefit:


Beneficiary under pension age


Single person
27·05
28·45


Wife or other adult dependant
16·70
17·55


Beneficiary over pension age


Single person
34·05
35·80


Wife or other adult dependant
20·45
21·50


Standard rate of sickness benefit:


Beneficiary under pension age


Single person
25·95
27·25


Wife or other adult dependant
16·00
16·80


Beneficiary over pension age


Single person
32·60
34·25


Wife or other adult dependant
19·55
20·55


Widows' allowance (first 26 weeks of widowhood)
47·65
50·10


Maternity allowance
25·95
27·25


Attendance allowance


Higher rate
27·20
28·60


Lower rate
18·15
19·10


Retirement pension for persons over pensionable age on 5 July 1948 and for persons over 80*


Higher rate
20·45
21·50


Lower rate
12·25
12·85


Non-contributory invalidity pension†
20·45
21·50


"Therapeutic" earnings
22·50
23·50


Invalid care allowance
20·45
21·50

Main increased supplementary benefit rates



Existing ordinary weekly rate
Existing long term weekly rate
Proposed ordinary weekly rate
Proposed long term weekly rate



£
£
£
£


Supplementary benefit


Couple
43·50
54·55
45·55
57·10


Person living alone
26·80
34·10
28·05
35·70


Non-householder-age 18 and over
21·45
27·25
22·45
28·55


age 16–17
16·50
20·90
17·30
21·90

Existing weekly rate
Proposed weekly rate



£
£


Increase of non-contributory invalidity pension and invalid care allowance for a wife or other adult dependant
12·25
12·85


Mobility allowance
19·00
20·00


Guardian's allowance, child's special allowance
7·60
7·65


Rate of benefit for children of widows, invalidity, non-contributory invalidity and retirement pensioners, invalid care beneficiaries; unemployment and sickness beneficiaries when claimant is over pension age
7·60
7·65


* An age addition of 25p is payable to retirement pensioners who are aged 80 or over.


† Non-contributory Invalidity Pension and Housewife's Non-contributory Invalidity Pension will both be replaced from November 1984 by Severe Disablement Allowance, subject to the enactment of the Health and Social Security Bill now before Parliament.

Main increased industrial injuries benefit rates



Existing weekly rate
Proposed weekly rate



£
£


Disablement benefit (100 per cent, assessment)*
55·60
58·40


Unemployability supplement†‡
32·60
34·25


Special hardship allowance (maximum)
22·24
23·36


Constant attendance allowance (normal maximum), exceptionally severe disablement allowance
22·30
23·40


Industrial death benefit


Widows' pension during the first 26 weeks of widowhood
47·65
50·10


Higher permanent rate
34·60
36·35


Lower permanent rate
10·22
10·74


* The rates for beneficiaries not over the age of 18 will also be increased.


† Invalidity allowances and increases for adult dependants and children will be the same as those payable with invalidity pensions.


‡ The amount of earnings permitted with unemployability supplement will also be increased.

Existing weekly rate
Proposed weekly rate



£
£


Any other person aged:


11–15 years
13·70
14·35


Under 11 years
9·15
9·60


Boarders personal expenses


Ordinary—couple
17·70
18·50


—single
8·85
9·25


Long term—couple
19·70
20·60


—single
9·85
10·30


Heating additions to supplementary benefit


Lower rate
2·05
2·10


Higher rate
5·05
5·20


Central heating additions


Lower rate
2·05
2·10


Higher rate
4·10
4·20


Estate rate heating additions


Lower rate
4·10
4·20


Higher rate
8·20
8·40

Main increased housing benefit rates



Existing weekly rate
Proposed weekly rate



£
£


Needs allowances


single person
43·05
45·10


couple/single parent
63·50
66·50


single handicapped person
48·00
50·30


couple (1 handicapped) or single handicapped parent
68·45
71·70


couple (both handicapped)
70·80
74·15


dependent child addition
11·90
12·85

Main increased war pension rates


All ranks receive the same increases, officers' rates being expressed in pounds per annum.


Disablement benefits



Existing weekly rate
Proposed weekly rate



£
£


Disablement pension for Private at 100 per cent. rate
55·60
58·40


Age allowance with assessments of:


40 to 50 per cent.
3·85
4·05


Over 50 and not exceeding 70 per cent.
6·05
6·35


Over 70 and not exceeding 90 per cent.
8·65
9·10


Over 90 per cent.
12·10
12·70


Unemployability allowances


Personal allowance
36·15
38·00


Increase for wife or other adult dependant
20·45
21·50


Increase for child
7·60
7·65


Constant attendance allowance


Special maximum
44·60
46·80


Special intermediate
33·45
35·10


Normal maximum
22·30
23·40


Half and quarter day
11·15
11·70


Comforts allowance


Higher rate
9·60
10·10


Lower rate
4·80
5·05


Mobility supplement
21·15
22·25

Existing weekly rate
Proposed weekly rate



£
£


Allowance for lowered standard of occupation (maximum)
22·24
23·36


Exceptionally severe disablement allowance
22·30
23·40


Severe disablement occupational allowance
11·15
11·70



Existing annual rate
Proposed annual rate



£
£


Clothing allowance


Higher rate
75·00
79·00


Lower rate
48·00
50·00

Death Benefits



Existing weekly rate
Proposed weekly rate



£
£


Widow's pension—Private's widow:


Standard rate
44·25
46·55


Childless widow under 40
10·22
10·74


Rent allowance (Maximum)
16·85
17·70


Age allowance for elderly widows


Age 65–69
4·30
5·00


Age 70–79
8·60
10·00


Age 80 and over*
8·60
12·50


Adult orphans
34·05
35·80


* New category.

Family Income Supplement



Existing weekly level
Proposed weekly level



£
£


Family Income Supplement


Prescribed amount for family with one child (income below which FIS is payable)
85·50
90·00


Increase in prescribed amount for each additional child
9·50
10·00


Maximum weekly amount for a one child family
22·00
23·00


Increase in maximum amount for each additional child
2·00
No change

Minor Improvements

Regulations will be brought before the House to provide for the following improvements in benefit entitlement rules, from 26 November 1984.

To allow periods after people reach age 80 to count towards the 10 year residence test for non-contributory retirement pension. At present people entering, or returning to the United Kingdom after age 70 are usually unable to qualify no matter how long they live in this country thereafter.

In Housing Benefit, to increase the disregard of the Manpower Service Commission's away from home allowance paid to people on training courses from £15 a week to the full amount of the allowance, currently £40 a week.

Also in Housing Benefit, to prevent a double deduction from benefit for amenity charges (eg for heating and hot water) included in the rent where people are moving to a new home and temporarily have entitlement to benefit in respect of both tenancies.

Coal Industry Dispute

Mr. Tony Benn: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wish to raise a matter to which you may not be able to give an immediate answer. The matter is important. I allude to the developments in the miners' dispute. Every day on television hon. Members and the public see pitched battles, involving thousands of people, which are almost scenes of civil war proportions. Many hundreds are arrested, there are many casualties, and two men have died—one just before the weekend.
The provision for debates falls into three categories. Under the Supply Day procedure the Opposition must find a proper balance of the subjects they wish to draw to the attention of the House. Standing Order No. 10, on which you, Mr. Speaker, have been unable to rule—I am not criticising you—is not an effective way of dealing with the matter. Under such circumstances, the historic precedent is for the Government to introduce emergency powers. In 1926, 1972 and 1974, the Government, who were in effect running an emergency regime, brought regulations before the House, which the House had to debate and approve.
Will you, Mr. Speaker, consider carefully how the House can bring to bear its opinions on this matter, and how the Government, who are responsible for masterminding the police operations, can be held to account by the House?

Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Member knows that I am not responsible for organising the business of the House. He mentioned numerous ways in which the matter can be raised. I think that he is wrong in saying that the Standing Order No. 10 procedure has not been operated, because it has. The question is not for me, but for the whole House, especially the Front Benches, to decide.

Defence

[FIRST DAY'S DEBATE]

Mr. Speaker: Before I call the Secretary of State fo move the motion, I should announce to the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition. I have a long list of right hon. and hon. Members who wish to speak during this two-day debate. I hope that it will be possible to accommodate them all, but it will be possible only if speeches are relatively short.

Dr. David Owen: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I do not wish to challenge your ruling, but will you tell the House either now or later whether you are bound only ever to choose one amendment, or whether you may choose two amendments? Does Standing Order No. 35 relate only to the debate on Her Majesty's speech? It would be helpful to hon. Members who seek to place motions on the Order Paper for vote and for debate, if you will tell us whether you have such discretion or whether we must change the Standing Orders of the House?

Mr. Speaker: I am only able to choose one amendment on an ordinary day, but I can choose two amendments for the debate on the Queen's Speech. However, I am bound to choose only one amendment for a debate of this nature, and I have done so.

The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Michael Heseltine): I beg to move,
That this House approves the Statement on the Defence Estimates 1984, contained in Cmnd. 9227.
I believe that the White Paper provides the information on which an informed debate can take place.
I was pleased to see that this was the view of the Defence Committee in its own valuable report, to which I shall refer.
Twice this century, the peace of the world has been shattered by world war. Two weeks ago we commemorated D-Day and the sacrifices of the second of those wars. Those who survived had one profound hope to sustain them as they surveyed the wreckage of nearly six years of total war. It was the hope that such cataclysmic events should not occur again. They regarded it as their duty to themselves and to the 50 million across the world who had not survived to ensure that international tensions should in future be resolved by means other than war. In practice, across much of the globe little has changed. The use of force and of violence in the pursuit of political ends is as commonplace today as it has been throughout history. The continuing loss of human life with all the attendant destruction remains a feature of day-to-day life, uncontrolled and apparently uncontrollable. In the realities of power politics too much of the evidence points to a determination to keep it that way.
But there has been one profound achievement during the past 40 years. Despite the constant reality of East-West tension, a world conflict has been avoided. The peace of Europe has been maintained, and in western Europe at least political freedom preserved.
We cannot be prepared to rest on the mere absence of war. Peace between East and West has been preserved, first, because of a perception on all sides that the alternative is too appalling to contemplate. Peace has also


been preserved because great resources have been devoted to military expenditures. Of course, peace based on fear and suspicion will always be uneasy and uncertain. Of course, the task of the statesman is to move to a position where peace is based on mutual understanding and on trust, but let no one doubt that the existence of peace itself is a prize beyond previous attainment. That we have not also moved to peace in a climate of trust is a challenge, but not a disaster.
The primary purpose of NATO is to preserve the peace and security of its member nations, and this is what it has achieved for 35 years. We have made it clear that we shall maintain our defences at a level sufficient to deter threats to our peace and security. We have also made it clear that we want to talk to the Soviet Union and to achieve a meaningful dialogue on reducing East-West tension and securing arms control.
I will not disguise from the House the fact that progress during the past year has been disappointing. That has not been for want of effort on the NATO side, but one thing is certain about negotiations: it takes two to achieve success. There must be a real and genuine will on both sides to be flexible and to seek a lasting understanding.
The House will judge whether the NATO Alliance has done all it could to pursue the chance of establishing common ground. Across the range of arms control negotiations, NATO has taken initiatives and shown its willingness to hold a meaningful dialogue. At the level of strategic arms, the Americans have made it clear that everything was on the table for discussion, but the Russians are refusing to meet. The intermediate range nuclear forces talks remain suspended.
Since those talks began in 1981, the United States has made it clear that it was prepared to remain at the negotiating table for as long as was necessary to reach an agreement. The only proviso was that the large and growing imbalance between East and West in intermediate range nuclear systems could not be allowed to persist. The zero option was on the table. Failing that, the Alliance made it clear that it was prepared to accept equality at the lowest level the Soviet leadership was prepared to negotiate. The Alliance also showed flexibility on other points of concern to the East, such as medium-range aircraft. As the talks continued, the number of SS20s pointed at Europe grew from 171 in 1981 to 243 in 1983, and at that time NATO had no comparable missiles. Yet as soon as the first NATO missiles arrived in Europe, the Soviet Union broke off the talks.
The House will contrast this Soviet rigidity with the Alliance decision taken in October 1983 to reduce the nuclear stockpile in Europe to the lowest level for 20 years. When implemented, the decision will mean that since 1979 the number of Alliance warheads deployed in Europe will have been cut by one third, by one half in the case of warheads for shorter range systems.
We are also committed to seeking reductions in conventional arms and to pursuing confidence and security-building measures to reduce tension. In Stockholm, the West is negotiating to reduce the risk of an outbreak of hostilities in Europe as a result of accident or misunderstanding. At the MBFR talks in Vienna we are committed to achieving fair and verifiable conventional force reductions in central Europe, and in Geneva we are striving for a total ban on chemical weapons, but the Soviet attitude remains inflexible and unyielding.
Most recently at the London economic summit, Western leaders expressed their wish to see early and positive results in the various arms control negotiations and the speedy resumption of those that had been suspended. The joint declaration on East-West relations at the summit reiterated the United States' offer to restart nuclear arms control talks anywhere, at any time and without preconditions. The words were hardly offered when they were being denounced by the Soviet Union—not only denounced, but with no constructive proposals to put in their place.
Of course, there are fundamental differences between the political systems of East and West. Leaders of the Western nations know that there is an urgent and compelling imperative in democracies towards the pursuit of peace. In free societies, people can express their desire for peace and reductions in tension openly, in the press, on the streets and through the ballot box. The leaders of the Soviet Union face no such pressures. I have no doubt that the vast mass of the Russian people also want peace, but they lack the means to impress their views on the leadership in the Kremlin.
The lesson for us is clear. We must recognise that we are dealing with a cautious but calculating leadership—a leadership obsessed with the security of their state but disregarding the threat which Soviet power poses to others. Their system is premised on the certainty of the eventual ideological triumph of Communism, but it will proceed carefully towards that goal. Opportunities will be grasped, but only if the price is acceptable. It is a bureaucracy which, by its nature, is slow moving, led by men whose whole experience is to play things long. We cannot expect to make rapid progress in negotiations with the Soviet Union, but equally we must persevere, and we must articulate to Western public opinion why meaningful and lasting agreements with the Warsaw pact can be achieved only as a result of hard, slow and patient negotiations conducted from a position of strength. It would be folly to encourage unrealistic hopes of easy and rapid progress which cannot be fulfilled.
For 35 years the policy of the NATO Alliance has been to deal with the Soviet Union from such a position of strength. The Alliance has made a realistic appreciation of the aims of the Soviet Union and its strengths and weaknesses. We recognise the Russian propensity to exploit instability in Asia, Africa and central America. We see the continuing repression of eastern Europe and the continuing attempt to crush Afghanistan. Above all, we know the size and power of Soviet military capability, which continues to grow.
The leaders of the Alliance nations believe that their fundamental duty is to preserve the freedom of their peoples through the maintenance of strong defence forces capable of resisting aggression. The White Paper describes the steps that the Government are taking to this end. The British contribution to NATO defence continues to be second only to that of the United States. We are spending £17 billion on defence this year, and the figure next year will be 18 billion. Our defence contribution outstrips that of our major European allies as a total figure, as a per capita figure and as a percentage of GNP.
We are continuing with the programmes which are in hand to modernise our conventional and nuclear forces. The defence of the United Kingdom homeland remains fundamental to our national survival and to the capability of NATO to reinforce in war. For the next 20 years the


backbone of the air defence of the United Kingdom will be provided by the Tornado F2 aircraft, which is a highly sophisticated air defence aircraft with excellent range, loiter and stand-off capabilities. Our early warning capability will be greatly enhanced by the entry into service later this year of the Nimrod AEW aircraft and the continuing modernisation of our air defence radar and communications facilities. Hawk with Sidewinder will provide a useful additional air defence capability at a relatively low cost. We are continuing to modernise our naval forces to counter the Soviet mining threat to our offshore waters.
On the central front of Europe we have in hand enhancements which will strengthen BAOR equipment to an extent not seen in the past three decades. They include the introduction of the MCV80 combat vehicle, the multiple-launch rocket system, the LAW 80 anti-armour weapon, Javelin, the successor to Blowpipe and the new range of small arms. We have already ordered sufficient Challenger tanks to equip four regiments. I am pleased to have been able to announce today that orders will shortly be placed for a further 62 tanks from royal ordnance factory Leeds to equip a fifth regiment. Two squadrons of the Tornado GRI strike aircraft are now in service with RAF Germany. The combination of Tornado, its JP233 airfield attack weapon and the ALARM system will be a potent one in the suppression of Warsaw pact air operations in the 1990s and beyond. Our air power in Germany will be further strengthened when the advanced Harrier GR5 aircraft enters service later in the decade.
In the case of our maritime forces, which play such a vital role in the eastern Atlantic and the Channel, weapons systems in or coming into service over the next few years include the lightweight Stingray and heavyweight Spearfish torpedoes, the Sea Eagle and Harpoon anti-ship missiles. There are now 37 warships on order for the Royal Navy, including one aircraft carrier, seven type 22 frigates, four nuclear fleet submarines and the first of a new class of conventional submarines.
I am also able to tell the House today that we shall shortly be inviting industry to make competitive proposals to design and build the first class of a new type of support ship, the auxiliary oiler replenishments, or AORs. This is a new concept for the support of the Royal Navy, a "one-stop" ship which will carry in one hull all the fuel and stores needed for replenishment at sea. It is also a new concept in ship procurement, since this is the first time we are going out to competition for proposals to design and build a first-of-class ship of such importance and complexity.
In strengthening our conventional forces, we are seeking to give an increasing emphasis to our reserve forces. Not only are these cost-effective, but they provide for wider participation in the work of the armed forces, which in itself is valuable. We have already announced the expansion of the Territorial Army to 86,000 by the end of the decade and the creation of the Home Service Force, and we are looking to strengthen the role of the other reserve forces. The Defence Committee commented helpfully on these developments. We hope to do more, but the pace at which progress can be made depends upon the response within the community.
We also plan to modernise our strategic nuclear deterrent with the Trident system. I accept at once that that

remains an object of controversy. The opponents of Trident maintain that it represents an unnecessary escalation of the arms race, that the alternatives are more acceptable, and that the cost of Trident will distort the rest of the defence programme. I do not believe that any of these propositions stands the test of analysis.
In comparing Trident with our existing force, we must take account of the deployment of Soviet anti-ballistic missile defences and the development of Soviet antisubmarine capabilities since Polaris—a system designed in the 1950s—came into service. The Trident force will be the minimum size necessary to provide a credible and effective deterrent. While we need for the 1990s and beyond a missile with a range which allows our strategic submarines increased "sea room", we chose the D5 missile because the longer-term cost advantage lay with maintaining the maximum commonality with the United States programme. But, having done so, we have made it clear that we do not envisage using the full warhead capability of the system.
It is argued that there are cheaper alternatives based on cruise missiles. This was gone into most carefully at the time and, for an equivalent weight of deterrent power, a cruise missile force was found to be more expensive to buy and to run than a ballistic force. Of course, ultimately what is required to deter is a matter of judgment. We can all change the basis of the calculation to suit us at the time.
What the Government must have in mind is that a cheap system which does not deter would be simply a waste of money, and one which was not invulnerable to preemption would invite the very attack it was intended to prevent.
There is also the question of cost. The White Paper gives an estimate of £8·7 billion at average 1983–84 prices and exchange rates, which is the common price base for the figure work in the document as a whole. As time moves on the estimate will, of course, change. The Defence Committee has quoted a higher figure in its report, and because it is a factor which can readily be isolated, it has focused attention on the exchange rate element of the equation. But, as the Committee also points out, there are other factors in the equation which could influence the estimate the other way.
I do not intend to depart today from convention and to introduce new figures on a different base. They would themselves only be overtaken in due course. The essential point is not whether the cost in isolation is £8·7 billion or some other figure, but whether this cost is affordable in the context of the defence budget as a whole. In this latter perspective, the scale of planned resources completely dwarfs marginal charges in a single project—even of the scale of Trident. We are talking of cumulative defence budget over the period of procurement of Trident of some £350 billion at today's prices.
In annual terms, Trident will cost on average, say, £500 million a year or 3 per cent. of the defence budget, but this Government have increased the defence budget by one fifth or some £3,000 million a year since 1979. In other words, the increase alone under this Government is around six times the average cost of Trident.
Trident, when it succeeds Polaris, will be one of the four main pillars of our defence programme. What I cannot understand is how a party that in government, through much of the 1960s and 1970s, maintained Polaris, and modernised it at great expense with Chevaline, now


in opposition and without any change in the policies of the Soviet Union, can argue for a defence policy without our own last resort deterrent.
The Government are committed to carrying through the modernisation of our conventional and nuclear forces. We are also committed to getting the maximum value for money from the defence budget. Our aim is to secure the maximum output of front-line capability from the resources of money and manpower which we devote to defence.
Chapter two of the White Paper outlines the comprehensive range of initiatives which are in hand. These apply across the spectrum of manpower, money and equipment. The results, in terms of extra capability for the services, are already apparent.
For the Royal Navy, we have announced that up to eight ships which would have otherwise been placed on standby from 1986 onwards will be kept in the operational fleet. As a result, the number of destroyers and frigates available at short notice for NATO and national commitments will be increased by up to 20 per cent. compared with previous plans.

Mr. A. E. P. Duffy: Will the Secretary of State confirm that only one major surface warship and one submarine will be completed this year, the lowest number this century, and that only one additional ship—a frigate—joined the fleet last year, the smallest number since 1949? Where would the right hon. Gentleman now be without the shipbuilding programme bequeathed to him by the last Labour Government?

Mr. Heseltine: In no way do I wish to suggest that the last Labour Government did not make a significant contribution to our conventional forces. That is why at the last election I found it so extraordinary that Labour should threaten to reduce the very commitment that it had considered necessary when in government.

Mr. Duffy: Why have this Government not placed more orders?

Mr. Heseltine: I have already told the House of the number of ships under construction or on order for the Royal Navy. Those orders have been placed by the present Government, but I do not seek to diminish what the previous Labour Government did. I only wish that the Labour party consistently would follow the same policies in opposition as it did when in government.
For the Army, we intend to redeploy 3 per cent. of our manpower from the support areas to the front line. This will enable us to man the comprehensive programme of re-equipment for BAOR which is in hand. It will also allow us to strengthen our home defence forces and to improve the capability and readiness of our out-of-area forces based on 5 Airborne Brigade.
For the RAF, manpower levels will be held steady as the number of front-line aircraft increases by more than 15 per cent. over the decade.
I have announced proposals for the reorganisation of the Ministry of Defence which are designed to achieve greater efficiency in the conduct of our business. These are being worked through and I shall be announcing the results before the recess. Finally, we are committed to securing greater competition across the range of our equipment procurement and support services. Our analysis has shown that significant savings—up to 30 per cent. in some recent cases—can be achieved through competition.
It is argued by some that this pursuit of value for money, though laudable in itself, is not significant in terms of defence policy. I know that few people want to concentrate on it—it is detailed and uncomfortable, and it challenges the pressure groups within the defence community as a whole. Instead, there is a preference for focussing on marginal increments in resources — and these are regarded as central to policy. The Government have set about establishing a level of defence expenditure appropriate to the threats which we face and have made provision accordingly, but increasing resources cannot he a process without limit. We must shift the focus from the marginal increase to addressing the output that we are achieving from the whole of a much larger defence budget.
We intend also to pursue greater international collaboration in the development and production of new weapons systems. In particular, we seek greater arms cooperation within Europe and between Europe and the United States. Greater standardisation of defence equipment across NATO boundaries has obvious benefits for the battlefield commander, and the scale and sophistication of major modern weapons systems often rules out a national solution. European collaboration is important because it demonstrates to the United States that the European allies are prepared to play their full pan in NATO defence.
We are already involved with our partners on a wide range of collaborative projects — for example, the multiple-launch rocket system, the self-propelled SP70 gun and the EH101 anti-submarine helicopter. For the future we are discussing with our partners an outline concept for a European agile fighter aircraft to meet the air threat from the Warsaw pact in the 1990s and beyond. We are studying with other nations the feasibility of introducing a standard NATO frigate design for the mid-1990s. Of course the harmonising of national requirements and priorities is not easy. There are political, military and industrial obstacles to be overcome. But I am clear that more needs to be done if we are to take advantage of the potential of improving our defence offered by the new technologies which are now coming forward.
There has been some debate recently on the European contribution to defence. it is natural that there should be such a debate within the NATO Alliance. There are those in the United States who believe that the Europeans are not carrying their share of the defence burden, just as there are those in Europe who believe that the European voice should be projected more loudly in the counsels of the Alliance.
The White Paper sets out the extent of the European contribution to the defence of the Alliance. The European allies provide some 90 per cent. of the in-place ground forces, about 80 per cent. of the tanks, about 90 per cent. of the armoured divisions, about 80 per cent. of the combat aircraft, and 70 per cent. of the fighting ships in European waters and the Atlantic.
There is already co-operation between the European allies. I am currently the chairman of the Eurogroup of Defence Ministers which aims to harmonise European views, and to ensure that the European contribution to the common defence is as effective as possible. There is scope for a more European approach in the field of defence procurement.

Mr. Dick Douglas: The Secretary of State is making a comprehensive speech but


so far he has omitted any reference to the United Kingdom merchant marine or the NATO merchant marine. Is it his intention to look at the position of our merchant marine or the totality of the merchant marine in relation to defence?

Mr. Heseltine: That point was raised, appropriately, in the recent Select Committee report. That report has just been published and if the House will bear with me I want to deal with that important issue when the Government come to respond to the report, which we shall obviously do carefully and thoroughly.
The independent European programme group has a central role to play. Its work has been given greater impetus in recent months. European collaboration has been shown to work. The experience now exists upon which we can build. The forums exist to carry forward that co-operation. What is now needed is the political will to carry forward the harmonisation of military and industrial thinking and practice. We must have discussions about real issues with a fixed agenda and a set timetable. Against that target we have to recognise that every country has its own deeply based self-interest. None of us will negotiate from any other stand.
But if the negotiations are to move us beyond the highly fragmented industrial base and the diverse operational requirements of today, it will require a common sense and practical recognition not only of our narrow national self-interest but of the wider self-interest that cheaper and perhaps better collaborative equipment can produce. The Americans will not wait for us to catch up and we would not do so if the positions were reversed.
Those are most important issues, but they do not go to the heart of the matter—our defence strategy and the role of each of the services within it. I would be the first to accept that our defence policy must evolve in the light of changing circumstances. We as a country and NATO as an alliance must be prepared to be flexible and to adapt to changes in the threat and to the new opportunities presented by developing and emerging technology. We cannot afford to stand still.
The White Paper might have addressed those issues more fully and I intend to do so in future years, but I make no apology for offering no dramatic shifts of strategy at the national or the Alliance level. The White Paper avoids this not out of complacency but because there are no quick and easy alternatives—although I cannot help observing that the answers appear quicker and easier the further people get from the actual responsibilities of taking decisions in government.
In looking at the balance of our effort, I am enjoined by some to adopt a more flexible approach and to recast our policy to a strategy directed more to the open seas and to British interests across the world. The Government have shown their resolve to defend their wider interests in the clearest way possible. We intend to continue to strengthen the mobility and to enhance flexibility of our forces. That approach was significantly speeded up in the light of the Falklands campaign.
But there is no realistic defence policy that diminishes our concern for the threat on the European mainland. Because NATO has successfully stabilised her central front and the Soviet Union poses a threat elsewhere, it is not self-evident that we should now take steps which might lead to the destabilisation of the central front, which is at

the heart of Europe's defences, in order to bring to bear, in unspecified ways, military power in more peripheral areas. If a policy of stabilisation in Europe requires a British contribution of 55,000 troops and the forces of the RAF in Germany, that seems to me to be a price that we should unhesitatingly pay.
In judging our contribution to the Alliance, we have to address hard realities, not simply hark back to tradition. The first is the weight of the Soviet threat and of NATO's own forces. The Soviet navy has certainly expanded hugely over the past 20 years, but the preponderance of Soviet power is still on land and in the air in Europe. On the Western side, we have to put into the balance not only the capabilities of the Royal Navy and of other European powers but also the huge American maritime effort.
There is also the dominating reality of my job, that we do not start with a blank sheet of paper. We have to address the implications of change as well as where it might lead. Given concerns in the United States about the level of the European contribution to our defence, a reduction in the British effort in Germany would seem likely to stimulate a wider process of withdrawal from commitment to shared defence on the ground, and to begin the unravelling of the very fabric of the Alliance itself. I cannot believe that the world would be a safer place without our European commitment or with fewer American troops on the ground in Europe. I cannot believe that Britain would be a safer place with a looser NATO Alliance.

Mr. Keith Speed: My right hon. Friend mentioned the considerable contribution made by the United States navy. None the less, does he agree with remarks made by the previous American chief of naval operations that the United States had a one-and-a-half-ocean fleet with a three-ocean commitment?

Mr. Heseltine: I am never unsympathetic to statements of even the most distinguished admirals who always see a task wider than their capability to meet it. That never means that we should dismiss it, but we, as my hon. Friend knows as well as anyone, are faced with the language of priorities. It is never absolutely possible to meet all requirements that are put upon one as a result of the military analysis of the situation.

Mr. Duffy: Do not run down the Navy.

Mr. Heseltine: I am not running down any of the armed services.
I stand, therefore, for the underlying basis of the 1981 Defence Review because this best secures the collective defence upon which our own security must rest.
There is a deeper strand of criticism, also fashionable, which argues that NATO's strategy of flexible response is no longer relevant in the strategic circumstances of the 1980s. We face the charge that NATO is bent on a dangerous and immoral strategy of nuclear war fighting from which the world can be made safe by the removal of the weapons involved. We face the opposite claim—but sometimes from the same people—that in an era of strategic parity NATO's nuclear strategy is incredible and that the weapons which underpin it are just not worth having.
The truth is that from the time that it was established in the mid-1960s, the strategy of flexible response involved difficult choices in terms of the reliance to be placed upon the conventional and nuclear elements of Alliance forces.
The proposition that there might be certain circumstances in which a conflict would be escalated to the nuclear level and in which a protagonist would embark upon a chain of events with possibly awesome consequences for everyone involved was never an easy one.
In the 1960s, as now, the supreme rationalist could argue that no sensible leader would follow such a course. But then, as now, the issue to be addressed was a different one. Would a potential aggressor be confident that if he placed his opponent in desperate circumstances the only way out would be seen to be surrender? While there is uncertainty about the response that would come, there remains deterrence, and this deterrent effect applies to all war, not just nuclear war. Indeed, that is NATO's purpose in a strategy of flexible response. Too many of the Government's critics come to the wrong answers by asking the wrong question. They ask, "How do you fight a war?" We ask, "How do you prevent the war in the first place?"
It has always been recognised that there are choices over when the point is reached where conventional options start to be exhausted. A price can be paid in terms of additional conventional strength to buy additional freedom of action. I should myself be the first to extol the benefits of the doctrine of no early use of nuclear weapons, provided that it was not presented as some dramatic shift in approach which the Russians might see as a lack of confidence and will in the West to defend ourselves. That would make war more, not less, likely.
This Government are working to provide the underpinning for this strategy in the real world by strengthening the deterrent effect of our conventional forces by enhancing both their hitting and their staying power. This is not a cheap option, but it is fully consistent with the process of thinning out shorter-range nuclear weapons to the minimum needed for credible deterrence, on which, as I have said, the Alliance is already embarked.
Where I part company with some Opposition Members is over the merits of so-called nuclear weapon-free zones. Of course we must have the most stringent controls over the release of all nuclear weapons and keep to a minimum the numbers on the battlefield, but to go further by declaratory policy would not of itself remove the threat of nuclear attack in the area concerned, since many of these weapons are mobile and could be moved up in a period of tension, and systems of longer range could be targeted from further back. What such a zone might offer is a weakening of our ability to stop the concentration of Soviet conventional forces and an increased risk of Soviet pressure on some Alliance members to abandon their commitment to contribute to the nuclear element of deterrence.
It will, I know, be argued that emerging technologies offer new opportunities for putting at risk Soviet forces which would formerly have been targeted with nuclear weapons and that therefore the nuclear threshold can be raised. This is indeed an opportunity which we must grasp, but it is an opportunity for the future and not for today. We have to accept the world as we find it, and the world as we find it today is one in which there is a great deal of talk about future and not yet available opportunities and remarkably little recognition of the value of the practical steps which we have actually taken to reduce the nuclear stockpile to the lowest level for 20 years.
Some, of course, want NATO to adopt a strategy of no first use. For the reasons that I gave earlier, this strategy—

even if it were believed by the Soviet Union—could well weaken deterrence and not strengthen it. It is not self-evidently better in political or even in the moral terms in which these arguments are so often cloaked to pursue a policy that might make war itself more likely.
But let us put that to one side for a moment. What is, I think, incontrovertible is that the logic of such a policy—if it were put forward seriously on defence grounds—is that the West would deter Soviet conventional power by the threat of a conventional response. Nuclear weapons would then essentially deter only Soviet nuclear attack.
In following through such a policy seriously, we would expect to find a commitment to large increases in conventional forces to the level needed for the job of conventional deterrence, a concern to maintain NATO solidarity and in particular the transatlantic link, and a sharing of the burden of essential nuclear deterrence. That is what the Labour party would have to proclaim.
What do we actually find from those Opposition Members who proclaim this cause with the fanaticism of the new convert? They have the clearest conference commitment to cut back on our conventional forces. They have a policy of removal of our contribution to Alliance nuclear deterrence as though this might magically square the financial circle of more conventional forces and a slashed budget. But, as always, the figures do not add up. They have in reality a policy which would strike at the heart of the NATO concept and leave this country with quite inadequate defences. They have an approach motivated more by the need to try to blend the two extreme wings of the Labour party, political expediency and the anti-Americanism of a faction of the hard Left which they try to dress up as an alternative defence strategy.
I make no apology for the fact that the statement contains no fundamental shift of strategy. Our current strategy is the right one for Britain at this time. It is based on a successful policy which has preserved the peace and security of the nation for the longest period of contemporary history. Our forces are not over-stretched, the balance of investment in the programme is satisfactory, and we have modern and effective fighting services of unequalled quality and calibre.
My task as Secretary of State is to keep our forces efficient to enable them to face the challenge of the future. I have outlined in my White Paper the ways in which this will be done. I commend it to the House.

Mr. Denzil Davies: I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
`believes that the plans outlined in the Statement on the Defence Estimates 1984, Cmnd. 9227, avoid the real and fundamental issues relating to the defence and security of the United Kingdom; is convinced that the enormous and increasing cost of buying the Trident nuclear system from the United States will mean further cuts in, and a weakening of, our conventional nonnuclear forces; deplores the fact that the White Paper contains no initiatives to stop and reverse the escalating and dangerous nuclear arms race; and calls upon the Government to work within NATO for a change from its existing strategy to a strategy based on the no-first-use of nuclear weapons, to cancel Trident and to remove all nuclear bases, including cruise missiles, from the United Kingdom.".
I suppose that it is too much to expect a defence White Paper to be very lively and exciting. The Secretary of State more or less admitted that his intention was not to make it very lively, constructive or exciting. Judged by the


turbid standards of the past, the White Paper is rather negative, like the right hon. Gentleman's speech, and unrealistic about the problems facing Britain in terms of its defence policy. It fails to say, as the Secretary of State failed to say, anything constructive about the two most serious issues facing the Government and the country. The first is the frightening nuclear arms race, which, clearly, is getting out of control. The second is the financial crunch that will fall on the defence budget over the next few years, because it is clear that the right hon. Gentleman's figures will not add up.
The right hon. Gentleman touched on the nuclear arms race. Far from showing any initiative to try even to moderate it, the Government are playing a full part in the escalation and proliferation of that arms race. They are still determined, apparently, to go ahead and buy Trident, a weapon which is massively more lethal, more accurate and more powerful even than Polaris and a weapon which even those who still want to see a second generation of British nuclear weapons believe to be inappropriate and totally unnecessary. Even Trident, with its 360 warheads—or is it more? — and its massive overkill, will not be enough to satisfy the Government's nuclear mania. We have to have a further 160 cruise missiles located on British soil.
The figures in the defence budget do not add up, and the right hon. Gentleman will need to have a further defence review. Britain's extensive commitment, stretching from the central front to the south Atlantic, combined with the massive sums needed to fund and finance Trident, a rapidly declining industrial base and with the contribution that oil revenues make to public expenditure and the balance of payments gradually getting less, inevitably mean that there will be further cuts in the defence budget and, when they come, they will fall on our conventional forces, as they have in the past, and so make us even more dependent on nuclear weapons.
Rather than facing these problems in the White Paper—apparently the Secretary of State said that he had no intention of facing them—he has done again what he has done in the past and escaped into a managerial cocoon. He has been playing with his MINIS, sticking pins into his wall charts, shuffling the top brass around and packing the Ministry of Defence with private arms manufacturers. He emerges occasionally from that cocoon to take a ritualistic bash at the peace movement, and then returns to his wall charts. He is not prepared to face the real issues.
After 1985–86, when the NATO commitment of 3 per cent. lapses, as I understand it, the commitment is that defence expenditure should barely keep pace with normal inflation—that is, inflation as worked out and calculated according to the retail price index. However, as the House knows, if inflation exceeds 4 per cent. — nobody believes that it will come down below 4 per cent.—that will mean cuts in defence expenditure even on the grounds of the estimated inflation. In addition, there is also something called, perhaps inaccurately, defence inflation. That means that the costs of defence equipment tend to exceed the general effects of inflation.
Let us call it defence inflation, although this may be inaccurate. It has been found—and there has been no denial of this—that defence inflation tends to exceed the retail price index by between 5 per cent. and 10 per cent. That means that if we take normal inflation and defence

inflation, while ignoring for the moment the cost of Trident, even before its cost starts to bear heavily on the budget, there are bound to be cuts in the defence budget.
I shall now quote from a favourite newspaper of Defence Ministers, the Daily Telegraph. I thought that I would bring a smile to the face of the Minister of State for Defence Procurement with that. On Wednesday 16 May, under the heading "The Flaw in Defence", the Daily Telegraph said:
the document is ultimately disappointing, even disturbing. The truth, which no amount of managerial reform can disguise, is that after next year defence expenditure may, for the first time in nearly a decade, begin to decline in real terms … Whatever economies Mr. Heseltine secures, the future appears to hold only the promise of further defence reviews and an erosion of our conventional fighting capability.
That is the Daily Telegraph talking, not the Left wing of the Labour party. It continues:
That is a prospect which the Government has shown no sign of confronting.
The Secretary of State showed no signs of confronting it either.

Mr. Cyril D. Townsend: The right hon. Gentleman used the word "flaw", but there is a basic flaw in what he is saying. He is suggesting that there should be an increased level of defence expenditure, when his party is committed to getting down the NATO average. That would mean a one third reduction in conventional forces, which would greatly increase the chances of nuclear warfare. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will talk about that.

Mr. Davies: The word "flaw" comes from the Daily Telegraph. I was merely reciting the situation as I see it, and the Daily Telegraph touched on that. If the Government think differently, perhaps the Secretary of State will deny it. He has not as yet, and he knows that the crunch will come.

Mr. Heseltine: I went to some length to deny it in my speech, but perhaps I should do it specifically. There is no foundation for what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. This Government have increased the defence budget by £3,000 million a year, and that is broadly the enhanced level at which expenditure will continue. There is a vast enhancement in our defence capabilities, and there is no danger such as that to which the right hon. Gentleman is drawing the attention of the House.

Mr. Davies: The figures look different. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman should read the public expenditure survey for the year 1985–86, which pencils in an increase of about 3 per cent. and assumes that inflation will be 3·5 per cent. I am merely going on the figures and the Secretary of State has not yet shown that those figures are wrong.
As we all know, the real Trojan horse—with which the Secretary of State went to great lengths to deal—that has been slipped into the system is Trident. The cost of Trident is out of the Government's control. The Government have little idea, at the end of the day, what the final price or cost will be. In July 1980, there was an estimate of £4·5 billion to £5 billion as the cost of Trident. In March 1982, the cost had risen to £7·5 billion—an increase of a mere £2·5 billion. In March of this year, the Secretary of State rather shamefacedly slipped a new horrendous figure into a defence question. Apparently, the cost will now be £8·7 billion. Last week, the Select


Committee on Defence, using optimistic figures for British and American inflation, estimated that the cost will be £9·5 billion, and so it will go on and on.
In four years under this Government, and on their best case estimate — I should like to see the worse case estimate, which no doubt is locked up carefully either in the Ministry of Defence or the Treasury—over the past four years there has been a 100 per cent. increase, which is an increase of 25 per cent. a year, in the estimated cost of this missile system. That is all without a penny, or cent, being spent. This has come about under a Prime Minister who keeps lecturing the country and the House about the financial rectitude that was practised so well in that little grocer's shop in Grantham. If financial lack of control such as this had been practised in that little shop, the bailiffs would have been in with their white chalk long ago, marking the furniture.
This point was well made by Mr. Neil Collins in The Standard. I read the financial columns of the newspapers, Conservative Members may like to know. Mr. Collins is a distinguished City editor and on 15 March, just after the Secretary of State's announcement of another almost £2 billion increase, under the heading, "Trident surfaces as a £9 billion horror", he said:
It would be some comfort if we could be reasonably confident of Mr. Heseltine's new figures. Naturally, we can't … The case for the Trident missile is not even widely accepted.
I do not think that it is on the Conservative Benches.
The tactics employed by the Ministry of Defence to get us committed to the project are familiar enough—little public debate beforehand, gross under estimate of the cost followed by a quiet series"—
[Interruption.] I know that this is painful for Conservative Members, but as it is clear that most of them do not read the financial columns of newspapers, I shall read the article to the end. It continues:
gross under estimate of the cost, followed by a quiet series of 'revisions' of the price to take account of 'relevant inflation'.
The Government have no idea what the final figure for the cost of Trident will be, because so much of the cost is outside the control of the Secretary of State, he well knows. Indeed, the Government do not know what kind of weapon they will get at the end of the day. In 1980, it was going to be C4 and Trident 1. Now, apparently, it will be D5. Who knows, if the Americans change their minds, it might be E6.

Mr. Nicholas Soames: No, it is ET!

Mr. Davies: There could be modifications. The Secretary of State will have to pay the cost if he wants the missile.
The Government have got themselves into an absurd position of locking themselves and one of the main pillars of their defence policy into the military technology and defence strategy of another country—at that, a superpower—over which they have no control. That is why the Government do not know what the cost of Trident will be.
I deal next with the exchange rates. The Secretary of State is coy about the exchange rates, and I understand why. We have been told by the Select Committee that the exchange rate means a 1 per cent. fall in the dollar exchange, equalling £25 million. If one goes back to 1980, the picture is an interesting one. In 1980, the estimate was based on $2·36. In 1982, it was based on $1·78. In March 1984, the estimate of the Secretary of State was on the

basis of $1·53. The exchange rate of the pound to the dollar today is down to $1·37. That is another reason that the cost of Trident—the 45 per cent. cost in the United States—is outside the control of the Government. Not only do those figures on the exchange rate tell something about Trident, they show the rake's progress of Tory economic policy from 1980 to 1984.
Let us examine what the exchange rate might be in 1988–89. Let us say that it might be $1·20—I think that it will be lower, but let us be charitable and optimistic. That will mean another £500 million on the cost of Trident 3, all sunk apparently on the foreign exchanges. We believe that the Government decision to buy Trident will turn out to be a disaster militarily and financially, and the sooner it is cancelled, the better.

Mr. Churchill: Is it not humbug for the right hon. Gentleman to suggest that Trident is the single most expensive piece of military procurement that the country has undertaken, especially bearing in mind that, when the Labour party was in power, his Government, which he chooses conveniently to forget about, were responsible for the Tornado programme, which cost 25 per cent. more than the latest estimates for Trident?

Mr. Davies: My point is that Trident is expensive, the Government have no control over it, so much money has been spent in the United States that it is not possible to have control over it, and no estimates can be believed.
I deal next with flexible response, which was dealt with in an offhand and depressing manner in the White Paper in paragraph 124. The Secretary of State read us a long civil servant bureaucratic essay about it, but said nothing new. The Secretary of State must know—the fact that he raised it in his speech shows that he must know—that a considerable body of opinion on both sides of the Atlantic believes and argues that the strategy of flexible response is now out of date, unrealistic and dangerous, and that it should be re-examined and, over a period, gradually changed. The strategy simply means being prepared and ready in a war fought by conventional weapons—I think that the Secretary of State would agree with this—to be the first to unleash nuclear weapons in central Europe. In fact, it is a strategy of first use of nuclear weapons. The basis of the strategy was set out in a joint article in the American publication Foreign Affairs in spring, 1982. This joint article was written by Mr. Robert McNamara, Mr. McGeorge Bundy, Mr. George Keenan and Mr. Gerard Smith. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Dorset, North (Mr. Baker), the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister, shows his ignorance, because obviously he has not heard of these gentleman, or read the article. The article was written by individuals who are experienced in this matter. They are not members of CND or any of the peace groups that the Secretary of State dislikes so much. The authors traced the history of NATO strategy before flexible response, because flexible response to some extent is a jargon phrase, and not very different from what happened previously. On page 754, the article said:
A major element in every doctrine has been that the United States has asserted its willingness to be the first—has indeed made plans to be the first if necessary — to use nuclear weapons to defend against aggression in Europe. It is this element that needs re-examination now. Both its cost to the coherence of the Alliance and its threat to the safety of the world are rising while its deterrent credibility declines. This policy was


first established when the American nuclear advantage was overwhelming, but that advantage has long since gone and cannot be recaptured.
Indeed, the basis of the strategy—this is where it is dangerous—envisages what is ridiculously called fighting a limited nuclear war, apparently a war of controlled nuclear escalation where we start with the landmines and the shells, then go to the bombs, and then to the ultimate, flexible response weaponry—the cruise and Pershing 2 missiles. The danger is that it demands the matching of every missile against every missile, every bomb against every bomb and every rocket against every rocket. That is why we had Chancellor Schmidt's speech in London in 1977, and it is one reason that we have cruise missiles in Greenham common today. Cruise missiles are as much a product of flexible response as the landmines on the Fulda gap on the central front. Nobody is arguing that it is possible to make this change overnight, but we would like to know of some thinking by the Government — no indication of this was given in the White Paper, nor in the speech of the Secretary of State—showing that they realise what the problem is, and are prepared to move towards a policy on no first use of nuclear weapons.

Mr. Soames: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what is his assessment of the Russian plan for European battle and, if he were in the position of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, how he would lay his plans to respond to that threat?

Mr. Davies: I know that the hon. Gentleman has been to Moscow, and I understand that he is fairly full of it. I would be happy to discuss these matters with him, but not at the Dispatch Box. One argument that will be put forward, which was touched on by the Secretary of State, although he was not too certain of it, is, "Yes, all right, let us go to no first use, but it will mean a massive increase in conventional weapons." I do not believe that that would necessarily be the case. It will certainly mean a re-ordering of the way that defence on the central front is to be carried out, a change from a forward defence to something quite different. That I accept. However, I do not believe that it would mean such an increase in conventional weapons.
To return to the article, I stand by what Robert McNamara and others said in the article in Foreign Affairs. I know that the hon. Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames) is not interested. He is still thinking of his glory in Moscow when talking to the generals, but perhaps he should listen to what the article said. The article continued:
Yet it would be wrong to make any hasty judgment that those new levels of effort must be excessively high. The subject is complex, and the more so because both technology and politics are changing … there is no need for crash programs, which always bring extra costs. The direction of the Allied effort will be more important than its velocity. The final establishment of a firm policy of no-first-use, in any case, will obviously require time. What is important today is to begin to move in this direction.

Mr. Peter Bottomley: Will the right hon. Gentleman now answer the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames) — irrespective of whether my hon. Friend has just been to Moscow—and say how he would prepare against possible aggression from the Soviets? What is his answer?

Mr. Davies: I thought that I had tried to give an answer. I said that the doctrine of flexible response might once have had some validity but that, once there was parity between the United States and the Soviet Union, it was important to move away from that policy towards one of greater reliance on conventional weapons.

Mr. Julian Critchley: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Davies: No — and what the hon. Gentleman writes in the Daily Telegraph is not acceptable to many of his hon. Friends.
The Secretary of State plans to increase competition in the procurement of defence equipment. Apparently there is to be more competitive tendering, more privatisation, more contracting out and more hiving off from the Ministry of Defence with the aim of getting better value for money. Like many people, I do not believe that we shall get better value for money. Speaking in another place, the noble Lord Carver said — [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I am bringing him in again, but this time not on flexible response. He said of the Secretary of State:
If he thinks that his gimmickry will make it possible for him to fund Trident without adversely affecting the conventional equipment programme, he is deceiving himself." — [Official Report, House of Lords, 14 June 1984; Vol. 452, c. 1277.]
I agree, and gimmickry is a strong word to use in another place. The irony, however, is that there will probably be less competition because there will be mergers in defence indstries. There have already been tentative moves in that direction. Is GEC to take over British Aerospace? If so, there will be a loss of competition and the Secretary of State knows it. If that merger is allowed, other defensive mergers will take place. Ultimately, the small subcontractors who are such an important part of the defence industrial base will be gobbled up. There will be a repetition of what happened to our civilian manufacturing base in the 1950s and 1960s. With all the mergers, the industry emerged weaker. The result of mergers will be a weaker industrial base and no gain in terms of price.
The Secretary of State is packing the Ministry of Defence with directors and managers of arms industries. The White Paper says that there are to be another 50 such people. That trend is disturbing and distasteful because the Secretary of State started with Mr. Peter Levene, the chairman of United Scientific Holdings. He is given the run of the Department, produces reports on the dockyards and finds out about the royal ordnance factories, which will be extremely convenient for his Alvis subsidiary if it decides to buy the tank factory at Leeds. Moreover, I see from the Daily Telegraph that he gets information and is given a public exhibition in that bazaar in Aldershot which the Secretary of State opened this morning. Only yesterday Mr. Peter Levene, chairman of United Scientific Holdings and personal adviser to the Secretary of State, wheeled Lord Trefgarne, who I understand is some form of Minister, down to the private exhibition in Aldershot and got great publicity for his Ferret 80 armoured scout car.
I shall quote the Daily Telegraph, which is careful about what it writes on these issues. It said:


The exception is the specially publicised politically extraordinary personal launching yesterday by Lord Trefgarne … Alvis was well-advertised as being part of United Scientific, of which Mr. Peter Levene—temporarily on loan to Mr. Heseltine …—is managing director.
The Financial Times said that Mr. Levene stood close to the Minister, just as we would expect.

Mr. Robert Atkins: The right hon. Gentleman has shown once before in a debate on this subject that he is not a great lover of the private arms industry. He shows that by describing as a bazaar the Army equipment exhibition, which contributes enormously to exports and provides the jobs that he is always on about. With regard to Mr. Peter Levene, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that people in the procurement and the defence industries have said for some time that there is a need for a mixture of the arms industry and serving officers in the Ministry of Defence and in industry? Is not what the right hon. Gentleman is saying flying in the face of that development, which should be welcomed rather than attacked?

Mr. Davies: I have regard and respect for the private arms manufacturers and do not mind poachers being turned into gamekeepers. What I object to is, after six months of being taught the art of gamekeeping, people being turned into poachers again. That is precisely what the Secretary of State is doing, but then perhaps the modern Tory party does not understand that analogy. I do not know, but perhaps the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Pym) understands it.
The Secretary of State should stop running for a while. He should stand still if he can and try to muster the courage to face and tackle some of the fundamental issues that he has not tackled in the White Paper and which will have to be tackled before long. If he cannot do that, or has not the courage to do it, his successor will have to do it.

Sir Humphrey Atkins: I am always pleased when the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) speaks. He has a pleasant voice, to which I enjoy listening, and I always live in the hope that I shall discover what the Labour party really thinks is the proper way in which to defend the country.
The trouble is that we do not find out. We have the Opposition amendment, which is designed to be read by the Opposition's supporters to make them feel comfortable, and we have heard much material from an extraordinary variety of newspapers, but we still do not understand how the Labour party would defend Britain. We know how it used to defend the country when it was in government. Although I and others had some quarrel with it about how it did that, in principle we did not disagree that much. However, I have never yet heard what has caused the Labour party to stand on its head in regard to this issue. Perhaps the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Mr. Silkin) will tell us in his winding-up speech.
We should like to know why the Labour party is standing on its head—other than that it perceives an electoral advantage in doing so. The Labour party should know better than that, as the arguments that it propounds receive no support on this side of the House and little support on the Opposition Back Benches. Last June showed that those arguments do not receive much support

in the country either. We are left wondering, but perhaps we shall find out later why the Labour party pursues that course.
The Defence Select Committee published its first report last Thursday. I do not intend, the House will be glad to know, to go through all of it. Right hon. and hon. Members are perfectly capable of reading it themselves. I shall draw attention to a few parts that are of special significance. We thought and said that the White Paper was long on management but perhaps rather short on political and strategic prospects. In paragraph 3 we said that
the White Paper confines itself to analysing the present situation and the United Kingdom response to it. We strongly recommend that future White Papers include a review of long-term political and strategic prospects, both within the NATO area and beyond.
That was the first point that we put to my right hon. Friend when he gave evidence to the Committee. He replied:
I think the first task that one as to do on taking over the Ministry is to recognise that it is going to take quite a long time to become familiar with the workings of the Minstry and the assumptions of the policies of the Ministry and it is unrealsitic to think that a Secretary of State is going to come in from domestic political experience and very rapidly change the policy assumptions of a Ministry as steeped in its own world and its own defence environment … as the Ministry of Defence.
We all accept that as undeniably true.
Indeed, my right hon. Friend went further and said that the political and strategic aspects were satisfactory, but that he would return to them another year. I hope that he will, because the Committee has recommended that he should. We said:
The interests which the present level of defence spending is designed to serve and protect must be clearly identified, and their prospects discussed, if the annual Statements on the Defence Estimates are to make a proper case for the size and shape of defence spending.
I am sure my right hon. Friend accepts that and that the review recommended by the Select Committee will be included in next year's White Paper.
I do not want the House to think that criticism of the White Paper means that we believe that it has no policy statements—indeed, it has plenty. Two of them repeat what we know already—the Government's decision last year not to continue after 1986 planning to increase defence expenditure by 3 per cent. in real terms each year, and my right hon. Friend's proposals — which he announced in March and mentioned this afternoon—for the development of the Organisation for Defence.
We have been promised a White Paper on the latter point before the end of next month and, no doubt, there will be an opportunity to discuss it in the autumn. I hope that the Government's business managers are listening. On the former point, the Select Committee has announced that it has begun a major inquiry into the effects of ending the 3 per cent. annual increase. The inquiry will take place during the autumn and we hope to report to the House at Christmas.
I give a special welcome to two other policy matters — the proposal for a substantial improvement in our front-line forces by tail-to-teeth transfer, and the decision to keep eight frigates in the operational fleet rather than move them into the standby squadron. That must be the right decision, provided that the training of sailors to man them does not suffer. The Select Committee was assured by my right hon. Friend's officials that that would not


suffer. Indeed, I also welcome the decision to strengthen the Army's front line by 4,000 men and the RAF's frontline aircraft by 15 per cent.
I welcome my right hon. Friend's decision to establish an arms control unit within the MOD. It is a good decision, which is much overdue. Of course, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office takes the lead in all negotiations about the control, reduction and elimination of weapons. I have no complaint about that. I have nothing but admiration for the patient, determined and skilful way that it has gone about its task over many years — and, I greatly fear, will have to go about it for many more years.
Those who know most about weapons are to be found in the MOD. They know the capability of nuclear, chemical and other weapons; they know the conditions necessary for the operation of nuclear weapons and the preparation needed for any such operation; they are skilled at interpreting information from photographs taken from far above the earth or gained from other sources; they know the minimum requirements for ensuring that any agreements on the limitation or reduction of weapons are being kept.
Of course, the MOD has been closely involved with disarmament negotiations, but the formation of a special unit, to use my right hon. Friend's words,
capable of advising any member of the Cabinet involved in this field, on all matters to do with arms control
is a clear step in the right direction, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend.
It comes as no surprise that my right hon. Friend is pushing ahead vigorously with his plan to increase competition in the supply of defence equipment. It is exactly what we would expect of him and, as a believer in the benefits of competition, I have no quarrel with him. His aim is to achieve better value for taxpayers' money. Paragraph 237 of the White Paper shows that savings of up to 30 per cent. can be achieved in certain areas. We have been told that that policy is already having a marked effect. In 1982–83, only 21 per cent. of contracts were awarded on a competitive basis. One of my right hon. Friend's officials told the Select Committee that during the first four months of this year that figure had risen to 49 per cent.—so far, so good.
Others with more knowledge of defence procurement than I will no doubt make their contributions in the debate. I want to mention one doubt about taking the policy too far. A great deal is rightly being done in NATO to collaborate with our allies, especially our European allies, in the development and production of new weapons. My right hon. Friend mentioned one or two in his speech. Paragraph 315 of the White Paper lists six—the multiple launch rocket system; terminally-guided warheads; self-propelled gun; new generation of anti-submarine warfare helicopters; new generation of anti-tank guided weapons and the advanced short-range missile. I have no doubt that there will be others.
If, as we hope, that collaboration bears fruit, I fear that we may find either that competition on an equal basis becomes impossible or, if it is possible, we must recognise that British industry will not always win the orders. It may win part of the orders, but that would mean that only part of our defence industrial base would survive. I know that my right hon. Friend regards a healthy defence industrial base as vital. I can envisage an area of difficulty in

marrying two desirable objects—increased competition and collaboration. I mention that as an anxiety in my mind which I hope will not come to fruition.
My penultimate point relates to something not in the White Paper, which should be in it — the Merchant Navy. Paragraphs 49 to 53 of the Select Committee report dealt with that point. I was glad to hear my right hon. Friend say that he would deal with the issue in his reply to the Select Committee. However, I want to go a little further now, because no one who lives in these islands can doubt the absolute necessity of there being sufficient ships in the Merchant Navy, either in peace or in war. Ninety-seven per cent. of everything that we import and everything that we export comes or goes by sea. If supplies could not come to us, our industry would come to a standstill and we would starve, just as we almost starved 40 years ago. I cannot tell, any more than anyone else can tell, whether the NATO countries will ever again be engaged in a major war. If they are, I cannot tell precisely what sort of war it will be.
It is at least arguable that if the nuclear stalemate—and the contemplation of the uselessness of engaging in a nuclear war in which everyone loses—prevents that kind of war, as it has done for over 35 years, a hostile power such as the Soviet Union, bent, as we know it is, on extending its boundaries and creed, might seek to bring us to our knees by the threat of starvation. To be sure, we have allies, but the British Government have a duty to look to our resources, too, and these are pitifully thin and getting thinner.
The Falklands conflict two years ago could not possibly have been described as a major war, yet to mount our operation there—not to supply the Falkland Islanders with food and materials, but to mount the operation—it was necessary to take up from trade no fewer than 45 merchant ships, all of which performed magnificently.
One might say that that was not a great number, because we have plenty of merchant ships. There were enough two years ago, but there are a lot fewer today. In round terms, five years ago there were 1,200 British-owned and registered merchant ships. Last year there were just over 750 and the forecast of the General Council of British Shipping is that in two years' time there will be only 400.
Those figures put a totally different complexion on the matter. If, to mount an operation the size of the Falklands campaign, we needed 45 ships and there were only 400 in all, how on earth could we contemplate engaging in anything more serious? Four years ago, when the Merchant Navy was much bigger than it is today, our predecessors as a Defence Committee said in their report:
Given the strategic significance of merchant fleets, details of their strengths should be included in future White Papers.
The Government agreed, and that was done in 1981. It has not been done since; it was not done in 1982, 1983 or this year. I do not know why not, but it should be done, and I hope that I will be assured by the Minister at the end of today's debate that it will be done, because it is extremely important.
I should like information—if not today, soon—about another matter. The ships to which I have referred are British-owned and registered and the Government can lay their hands on them if they need to. But many British-owned ships are registered under flags of convenience, and we have all heard of Liberia, Panama and places such as that. Can the Government lay their hands on those ships


in times of emergency and crisis? The United States Government can lay their hands on United States-owned ships registered in Liberia, either by agreement or under American law. I do not know whether we can, but we might need to if the Merchant Navy goes on diminishing.
Part of the trouble lies in the nice distinctions of departmental responsibility. Sponsorship of the Merchant Navy is the business of the Department of Transport—all of them excellent fellows, I have no doubt, but not particularly concerned with defence. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is not concerned with defence, either. He searches for revenue and for fairness in taxation, and in his Budgets makes alterations to our tax law which he knows will inflict considerable damage on our merchant fleet.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, in answer to a question by a member of my Committee, said:
At this moment I have not been advised to pursue policies involving myself in the present situation.
He should be so advised. If he is not, he should advise his advisers. The Government, to use a colloquialism, must get their act together, for it is an increasingly dangerous situation, and the Secretary of State is the right person to raise it with his Cabinet colleagues. I hope that he will do so
I conclude on a personal note. I was particularly pleased to read paragraphs 126 to 129 of the White Paper in which tribute is paid to the Regular Army, to the Ulster Defence Regiment and, by implication, to the Royal Ulster Constabulary for the work that they do in Northern Ireland.
They all have a hideously difficult time. Regular Army soldiers must act not as soldiers, which they are trained to be, but as policemen. We should be, and are, proud of the way in which they conduct themselves. I was delighted to note that—thanks, no doubt, to the increasing size and efficiency of the RUC—the number of battalions of the Regular Army in Northern Ireland has declined from 13 in 1979, when I first went there, to eight today. Furthermore, the total number of units doing a tour in Northern Ireland in any one year has gone down from 40 in 1979 to less than half that number today. That must be extremely welcome not only to the soldiers and the Ministry of Defence but to our NATO allies.
The UDR is in a different situation. It contains some of the bravest men I know. They work harder than almost anyone. They live where they work, as do their families, and everybody knows where they live. They are never off duty and they are at risk 24 hours of every day, 365 days of the year. We owe them an enormous debt, and I am glad to acknowledge it.

Dr. David Owen: I cannot remember an occasion since 1966 when I have been more worried about the defence budget projections for this country. In 1966 we had a decision to cut defence spending and a refusal to cut our defence commitments. That situation was not put back into balance until 1968.
This is the first defence debate since 1978 in which we have clear evidence of the Government—for 1986–87—making an actual reduction in defence expenditure. In 1978, against a background of great difficulty in public expenditure, Europe made one of its best decisions of the last 10 years. That was the collective NATO decision to increase defence spending by 3 per cent. per year, inflation-proofed, and it is to the credit of this country that

that decision was taken across Governments; it was taken by a Labour Government in difficult circumstances and fulfilled by this Government.
It is fair to say that we have fulfilled that commitment better than any other European country. However, the extent to which we have kept to that commitment is not as even as some hon. Members might think. We have not actually spent 3 per cent. per year. The figure has shown a great deal of variation, and if we look back over the defence budgets we see that, in terms of constant prices, in 1979–80 it increased by 5·4 per cent., in 1980–81 by 2 per cent.; in 1981–82 by 2·7 per cent.; in 1982–83 there was a substantial increase, for reasons of which we are aware, of 7·2 per cent.; in 1983–84 it increased by 3·4 per cent.; and in 1984–85 we are planning an increase of:3·5 per cent.
The assumption this year is that our spending will be on the NATO commitment target, but that is not the case. Already we have seen that 3·5 per cent. reduced by 0·9 per cent. because of the pay rise to the armed services. Effectively, therefore, we shall achieve a year-on increase in 1984–85 of only 2·6 per cent. Thus, we have already slipped this year from that 3 per cent. commitment.
For 1985–86 the Government are planning an increase of only 1·7 per cent., but if pay exceeds the guidelines and is 5·7 per cent.—rather than the 4 per cent. which is assumed for that year—we shall have zero growth. In 1986–87, unless pay is held to an average of 2·5 per cent., rather than the estimated 3 per cent., there will be no real growth.
The inflation assumptions that are fed into the Government's expenditure White Paper are ridiculous and absurd under-estimates. That is manifest for the fiscal year 1984–85. Conservative Members must face the fact that they will tomorrow evening be supporting in the Government's Division Lobby a Government who are making deeper cuts in defence spending than were ever envisaged by Sir John Nott. Whatever one's views about Sir John's proposals, within the constraints of having to accommodate the Trident expenditure, at least there was an intellectual basis for what was done. I fear that there is no intellectual basis for the Government's proposals. The Secretary of State is playing to the gallery.
The right hon. Gentleman has nominally reversed the Nott cuts. The force of three aircraft carriers has been restored. Sir John opted for two carriers. The amphibious assault ships are to be kept, when they were to be scrapped. HMS Endurance remains. The frigate and destroyer fleet will still decline from 59 to 50. The eight ships that Sir John wanted to hold in reserve will now be put on full duty, but without any increase in previously planned manpower. Overall Royal Navy manpower levels in the early 1990s will be 11,000 fewer than in 1981.
All the signs are that we are doing under the stewardship of the present Secretary of State exactly what we were warned against doing by the previous Secretary of State. We are keeping more hulls, but we are not equipping them with modern equipment and staffing them with properly trained crews. We are generally pretending to have an increased defence commitment, but not investing in weaponry was the shortcoming exposed around the Falklands. It is dangerous in modern, highly technological warfare to put ships at risk because of a lack of necessary capital expenditure. It is the capital


expenditure programme to which we must address ourselves, and which is severely threatened by the Trident programme.
The Trident programme is not a simple and clear-cut issue, it is true, but I have always opposed it. I did so from 1977, when in government, to 1979. I opposed it on arms control grounds, but above all I opposed it because I considered it to be the cuckoo in the nest. It was clear even than that it would pre-empt valuable resources being spent on areas of defence that we needed desperately to strengthen. If we want the Trident programme, we should have it plus a 3 per cent. growth in defence expenditure.
As the Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence, the right hon. Member for Spelthorne (Sir H. Atkins), said, it is estimated that the Trident programme will cost an extra £700 million. The effect of the movement in the exchange rate alone is £400 million. These extra costs mean that in 1986–87, the year which is causing most anxiety, there will be not just zero growth, but an absolute cut of 1 per cent. If the expenditure on Trident continues, that will go forward through 1987–88 and 1988–89. The Government have given no sign that they have anything more in mind for the defence budget than to hold the planned levels for 1986–87.
The likely consequences for the defence budget are extremely serious. If we want Trident, there should be a greater increase in the overall defence budget so that we can pay for Trident and improve our conventional defences. I do not believe that it is possible for the Secretary of State, when no doubt he is off to greener pastures, to fulfill the commitments which are before us within the forward defence expenditure—[Interruption.] The pastures that await him may be green in many senses.
The question that we must face is what is likely to happen to various programmes. How is the Secretary of State going to fit in replacements for HMS Intrepid and HMS Fearless and the amphibious assault vessels? How will he finance the new replacement for Tornado aircraft, which will be starting to make an impact on the capital budget at exactly the time when the Trident budget is at its peak? How will he be able to accommodate all these items of desirable new capital expenditure?
The majority opinion is that it will not be possible for all these items of expenditure to be accommodated within the budget and that there will have to be sacrifices, which will be felt in two or three years' time. The Secretary of State can proudly boast about what he is spending now, but those who are examining the budget are anxious about what it will look like in three or five years' time. There are not enough resources to maintain the present SSN build rate, to carry on with the Saxon programme or to continue with the agile combat aircraft programme. Something will have to give and the right hon. Gentleman knows it.
The obvious answer is more expenditure in addition to what is planned or the sacrificing of Trident. If we sacrifice the Trident programme — I believe that that should be done—I do not believe that we can earmark the moneys that are saved for the Health Service or the education service, much though I would wish that to happen. The moneys will be needed to improve conventional defence forces, which we must do if we are to raise the nuclear threshold.
In the middle and late 1990s we shall have to have contingency provision for a replacement for Polaris if there

has been no movement in arms control and no change in the Soviet-US negotiating positions. It is not unreasonable that the Secretary of State should say that if the Trident programme is stopped we shall have to have something to replace it unless we choose to go into the next century with no nuclear deterrent for the United Kingdom
The Secretary of State must face some of the realities of the action that has been taken in the United States over the Tomahawk cruise missile programme. Tomahawk missiles are being fitted now to nuclear submarines and nuclear-armed Tomahawk missiles will become operational this month. The Americans have implemented this programme because they believe that Tomahawk is an effective weapon system. In my view it would fit ideally into a minimum deterrent system if we decided to replace the Polaris system, which we shall not have to replace until the end of the 1990s. The Secretary of State currently plans that some Polaris boats should remain in service until 1997.
Tomahawk is not the most ideal or sophisticated deterrent system. It is not as good technically or strategically as the Trident system and it would be foolish to try to pretend otherwise. However, bearing in mind what we hear about the capacity to shoot down missiles in space, the ballistic missile system may not prove as advantageous in the next century as many thought. The submarine-launched cruise missile is a cheap deterrent because it can be fired from a conventional torpedo tube in existing SSNs. Only eight missiles are being fitted initially to submarines of the United States navy. There will be an extra 12 with vertical launch, to make 20 in all. Eight will be compatible with our existing SSNs. The cost will be about $1·2 million per missile at 1982 prices. The programme will not be cheap and much will depend on the SSN build rate. The maximum initial deployment would be about 100 missiles, which would be about one tenth of the cost of the Trident programme. There would be no extra refitting charges and it might be possible to increase the SSN build rate.
The Secretary of State says that there is no alternative to the Government's proposals, but he knows that there is and that it is one that I have presented to the House. It is an alternative which was considered seriously in the late 1970s. The Ministry of Defence was against it then because it wanted Trident. However, more and more senior armed service men are realising the consequences of going ahead with the Trident programme and there is a definite change of mood. I beg the right hon. Gentleman to listen to some of the younger serving officers.

Mr. Speed: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Tomahawk strategic nuclear warhead could be fitted in the new SSK 2400 programme?

Dr. Owen: That is true. It could be fitted also to surface ships if we wished to do so. One way out of the political problems surrounding the deployment of cruise is to put cruise missiles to sea. Helmut Schmidt was rather too easily cast aside when he asked for maritime deployment. They need to be in Europe, but it would be much less politically damaging — and there would be fewer midnight flits from Greenham common—if they were deployed at sea. I hope that we shall come back to the question of deployment at sea at a later date.
It is extraordinary that the Secretary of State did not mention that the United States Senate is even now


beginning to debate the possible reduction of 100,000 United States service men in Europe, phased over the next five years. That is being put forward by Senator Nunn, who has great authority. If a person of his calibre and distinction can advocate that degree of reduction, it will not be long —even if it is not voted on tomorrow—before the Senate insists on a reduction of United States forces.
For The Times at this stage to produce an editorial asking for reductions in BAOR seems to be extraordinary, but at least The Times is recognising that, under present arithmetic, the Secretary of State's forward projections simply do not add up and that we shall have to look at radical alternatives. I do not believe that it is possible to reduce BAOR, tempting though it might be, as a cut in forward defence expenditure. What I fear is that, as always, capital expenditure will be cut.

Sir Patrick Wall: It would be fair to Senator Nunn to remind the House that he advocated cuts only in order to persuade the European Governments to meet their proper defence expenditure targets. Most of them are not doing so.

Dr. Owen: The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. There is a mood of exasperation in the United States, which has increased its final deficit, with very serious medium-term consequences for the world economy. One of the reasons for that increase is their increased defence budget. If we want the United States Government to work on reducing their deficit, it will be more credible for Europe to be prepared to fill the gap by increasing its conventional defence spending. We would then be able to make a serious suggestion to the United States to do something about its deficit and to accept some of the political problems of raising taxes.
The problem is that Europe — including the hon. Gentleman's own Government — is cutting defence expenditure by very large amounts. I urge Conservative Members to look at the question with great concern. I do not worry too much about the Labour Opposition, because they are not capable of understanding that, if they wish to be logical and consistent in their anxiety about nuclear weapons, which I share, the way round the problem is to be prepared to spend more on conventional defence.
I notice that the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) has not signed the motion in the name of the Leader of the Opposition. I hope that that is because the right hon. Member for Leeds, East is not going to vote for it [Interruption] I cannot conceive of it as possible — [Interruption.] It is not a silly point; it is a very serious point. How could anyone with the right hon. Gentleman's background vote to remove all nuclear bases from Britain? It is an extraordinary comment on the major shift of opinion that has taken place when one recalls that the right hon. Gentleman used to speak as Secretary of State for Defence in the Cabinets of previous Labour Governments.
I repeat that Conservative Members should look at this budget question with extreme seriousness. My major criticism is that the Secretary of State has produced a White Paper of whitewash. He has not faced the challenge of two or three years ahead, but has chosen to forget it. He has not drawn the attention of the House to the fact that there will, in effect, be a 1 per cent. reduction in the defence budget in 1986–87. He has not shown how he intends to grapple with that fact.
The Secretary of State made no reference to his plans for reorganising the chiefs of staff. It is extraordinary that the other place has had a most detailed debate on how the chiefs of staff are to be organised. The statement of the Secretary of State was produced without any consultation. He has not even deigned to come to the House to explain his reasons.
I beg the Secretary of State not to deprive the single service chiefs of operational staff who can give strategic advice to the Secretary of State. I have long supported most of the other proposed changes—I think they are necessary — but if we emasculate the service chief by taking away his strategic staff, we shall greatly regret: it. I draw attention to a speech by Lord Lewin, who said:
if the single service chiefs of staff are to continue to give valuable advice on the whole field of strategic priorities and resource allocation, which I am sure they should, they must have adequate staffs of their own."— [Official Report, House of Lords, 12 June 1984; Vol. 452, c. 1175.]
On that aspect of the Secretary of State's proposals there is an absolute need for him to modify his position, and I hope that he will do so.
Given the Secretary of State's problems with the defence budget, he has the right to look at every possible means of saving money, and I do not object to that, but I object to some of the ways in which he is doing it.
With regard to the dockyards, a new area of concern, may I remind the Secretary of State of the effort that was made to improve the efficiency of the royal ordnance factories? This House agreed that there should be a separate vote. The ordnance factories improved their efficiency and they responded to the changes that were made. It is possible in the public sector to achieve major improvements in efficiency. We have seen it with British Airways under Lord King. The ordnance factories, having responded to the specific demand to be more efficient and more commercial, were then ill-served by the decision to privatise them.
The dockyards have defeated everyone who has been concerned with them since Samuel Pepys. What does the Secretary of State do? He appoints his adviser—he is perfectly entitled to appoint people from outside industry —but he seems to be unaware that agency management of the dockyards is not a new proposal. It has been considered on many occasions. It was considered by the Mallabar committee as being
the way to get the worst of both the commercial and Government Department worlds.
A long and detailed report on the dockyards published in 1980 by a committee chaired by the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Speed) expressed the view that one result of agency management would be that
the management would have little incentive to make itself more efficient.
The Secretary of State's proposal is that the Ministry of Defence should own the dockyard, the capital equipment, and modernise it, but that somebody else should be brought in to run it. He is proposing that people who have spent a lifetime in the industrial Civil Service should no longer be civil servants, but should be employed by the private sector, presumably on five-year contracts, with the Ministry of Defence having the capacity to terminate the private contracts.
I cannot imagine proposals more destined to produce inefficiency and a bad service for the fleet, with badly fitted ships. This is taking doctrine and dogma to absurd lengths. By all means let us have a dockyard vote. I tried


to get it myself in 1969–70 and failed. I have long believed it to be necessary. If we can get in the dockyards the efficiency that came to the ordnance factories, there will be support from many people inside the dockyards, but the agency management proposition will simply do further damage to the Royal Navy and to the refitting of the fleet.
Increasingly, the Secretary of State gives the appearance of a man who believes that he will hold his present office for only another year or so. His conduct is of someone who believes that fairly soon, with one bound, he will be free, simply leaving MINIS behind him. MINIS will not be a satisfactory legacy. I accept that the right hon. Gentleman thinks about the various problems. He made a thoughtful contribution about battlefield nuclear weapons, although I did not agree with all of it. I thought that it reflected a slight change in the Government's position, which I welcome. He knows that, with the defence cuts, he is up against it, but he should not have accepted, in his remit from the Prime Minister, that he should do something in regard to which Sir John Nott nearly lost his political reputation. The Secretary of State knows in his heart that it is wrong and that, however much management efficiency can be produced, it will not make up for the massive cuts.
I ask right hon. and hon. Members to think hard before they vote for the Government tomorrow night. This is not a defence White Paper that is deserving of support. Conservative Members should not be asked to vote for a defence White Paper which has implicit within it, because it is within the public expenditure forecast, a reduction from 3 per cent. inflation-proof spending to a minus 1 per cent. defence spend in 1986–87. If that is the new form of Conservatism, no wonder the people of Portsmouth, South voted as they did.

Mr. Keith Speed: I am in considerable agreement with much that was said by the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen), particularly about possible alternatives to Trident. I should like to develop that in a few minutes but, first, it would be churlish not to give a general welcome to many aspects of the White Paper, which is a substantial improvement on Cmnd. 8288, which came out in June 1981.
The recognition that we need a more powerful sharp end is absolutely right. I welcome the fact that there will be 50 operational frigates and destroyers, a number that I have always believed to be the absolute minimum requirement to enable this country to discharge obligations to NATO and, indeed, to carry out our national duties and requirements.
I am glad that it has been confirmed, to the Select Committee and elsewhere, that our ships' weapon systems, sensors, communications, and electronic counter-measures will be refitted and modernised as and when necessary to keep abreast of the threat. As the right hon. Gentleman has said, the south Atlantic conflict showed the vital importance of making sure that our capital assets are up to date and credible to the enemy. That means having sufficient industrial dockyard capacity and capability to do just that for our fleet.
However, the Select Committee on Defence, the British Maritime League and other expert commentators have noted that some areas give cause for considerable disquiet

—for example, where there is no policy, where the policy is wrong or where the Ministry of Defence is not being frank with the House and with the country.
A frigate and destroyer force of 50 ships means, according to my calculations, an annual rate of ordering frigates or destroyers to maintain reasonably modern ships of three or four ships a year. Yet, apart from the type 22 frigates that have been ordered as replacements for those lost in the south Atlantic, we have had no new orders to replace the older type 12s and Leanders that will inevitably drop off the end as they get older. The type 12 frigates in the fleet are, for the most part, about 24 years old and the Leanders vary from 21 to 11 years old, although most of them are nearer 20 than 11, which means that it will be important to ensure a frigate ordering programme.
I hope that we shall be able to go along with the Dutch system, whereby batches of frigates are ordered. If and when we get export opportunities — I am thinking especially of the type 23 frigates—instead of saying to Nigeria, Indonesia or whatever the country might be, "You have got to wait four years for a new frigate," we should do as the Dutch do, and say, "Yes, that ship is almost complete and may even have been launched. You can have it with six months delivery." The key point is that another new frigate would be ordered immediately for the Royal Navy, so that it is tacked on to the fleet and so that the home fleet does not lose out. The Dutch have done that with their Kortenaers with considerable success, as my right hon. Friend probably knows.
I am also concerned about the ordering rate for submarines. My right hon. Friend will know that the majority of the Oberon and the Porpoise classes of diesel-electric submarines are more than 20 years old. One new type 2400 submarine has been ordered; the first of a very advanced class—probably the most advanced conventional submarine in the world. But we must do much better than that. I believe and hope that countries such as Australia and Canada will be very interested in the new boat.
I calculate that we must have an ordering rate of at least two boats a year; otherwise our Oberons and Porpoises will be very obsolete and very tired if we are to maintain the present numbers of conventional submarines.
There is an important question concerning where these submarines will be built, bearing in mind our Trident programme, the hunter-killer nuclear-powered programme, and the type 2400 submarines. It is clear that they cannot all be built at Vickers' yard. Will Cammell Laird or Scott Lithgow be re-opened, and possibly Yarrows? I know that that question worries right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House. We need answers fairly quickly.
I am sure my right hon. Friend is aware of the concern about orders for a further eight or nine Sea Harriers, which are needed in the next year or so to replace attrition losses and inevitable losses through accidents and other factors. The order has been long delayed and needs to be placed soon with British Aerospace. I understand that the Royal Navy is forced to rob Peter to pay Paul to keep the squadrons at sea with HMS Illustrious or HMS Invincible. That is not good, especially as HMS Ark Royal is coming into commission soon.
Several right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned Trident costs, which, as the Select Committee has reported, are steadily rising. The right hon. Member for Devonport raised the important factor of the overall cost


to the defence budget. The Secretary of State was good enough to say in the Select Committee's evidence—it was reported in slightly obscure language at question 166 of the verbatim evidence at the end of the report—that, although the Trident programme in its peak years would account for 11 per cent. of the total equipment budget of the Ministry of Defence, it would take about 30 per cent.-plus of the Royal Navy's budget. That would be at a time when the budget was under great strain from the type 23 frigate programme, the type 2400 submarines, the follow-on to the Trafalgars in the hunter-killer submarine programme, commitments to amphibious replacements for HMS Intrepid and HMS Fearless, and the EH101 helicopter.
All those developments will come together and, quite frankly, there will not be the money to carry them through, especially if we intend to retain a 50-strong force of frigates and continue to order three frigates a year—unless we intend to continue to keep in operation the type 12 frigates and the Leanders until they are 30 or 40 years old. I do not believe that that is the intention, nor do I believe that it would be a wise course.
We must face the fact that, as procurement is going at the moment, it will take a very large chunk of the Royal Navy's procurement budget, when that budget is already very tightly stretched. The House, the Select Committee and everybody else agrees with the programme of conventional ships and forces to which I have alluded.
A report that has not been mentioned so far in the debate, but which should be mentioned, was one made last week of the apparently very successful ballistic missile interception over Kwajalein by one minuteman missile to another. These are very early days and I know that these are the first steps in a new technology. That report concerns me from two points of view. First, if the programme were carried through, it would have a newly destabilising effect on the anti-ballistic missile arrangements. We cannot ignore that.
Secondly, we must consider the technology that, for example, I found to be reported quite openly in the United States while I was there last week. The infra-red heat-seeking sensor on top of the minuteman missile is of sufficient sophistication to detect the heat from a human body at a range of 1,000 miles. This is very advanced technology. In another 10 to 15 years, where will that programme leave our existing ballistic missiles if it is carried forward?
A technical question mark hangs over the Trident programme, quite apart from the financial question marks, of which I have always had many. My preference in the past two to three years has been, reluctantly, for a submarine-launched cruise missile, to which the right hon. Member for Devonport has referred. My conversion is not a sudden deathbed repentance, because I wrote about it two or three years ago and I have voted consistently along those lines whenever the House has voted on the matter since then.
Expensive though Trident is, it is dwarfed in on-going annual costs by the sums needed to support—I stress "to support" — BAOR and our forces in Germany. The White Paper table shows that those costs stand at almost £1,000 million, all payable in foreign exchange in deutschmarks. The costs are rising steadily year by year and include the costs of maintaining 24,000 German civil

servants, as well as schools, transport systems and roads. The German civil engineering industry is a significant beneficiary from the Ministry of Defence budget.
But none of that expenditure is improving the front-line efficiency of the RAF or, indeed, of our soldiers in Germany. Even if one does not go along totally with the editorial in today's edition of The Times, one is bound to ask whether Anglo-German relations are so fragile and whether the Alliance is in such a precarious state that we cannot at least look at the support costs. If we could halve those costs and save some £500 million, it might go a long way towards meeting the problems that the Secretary of State, or his successor, will discover when it is found at the end of the decade that we cannot fit a quart into a pint pot.
The Government should take a long hard look at that sacred cow, and we should discuss with our NATO allies whether we should be spending all those sums of money, or whether by having more mobile troops—even if the figure of 55,000 is sacrosanct—and more imaginative housing, education and transport schemes, we can make considerable savings on that Ministry of Defence real estate in Germany. At present, it costs us a great deal in deutschmarks and resources, and we cannot really afford it.
I turn to something mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Sir. H. Atkins), the Chairman of the Select Committee. I refer to the biggest lacuna in the White Paper — the lack of any reference to the Merchant Navy. At any time, that might be regarded as eccentric, but when the British merchant marine is facing its worst crisis since the battle of the Atlantic 40 years ago, it is very remarkable indeed.
In the circumstances, the Select Committee's strictures, which are outlined in paragraphs 49–53, are most restrained. The House will recall the words of the present First Sea Lord, who was, in July 1982, Commander-in-Chief, Fleet. Speaking of Operation Corporate, Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse said:
I cannot say too often or too clearly how important has been the Merchant Navy's contributions to our efforts. Without the ships taken up from trade, the operation could not have been undertaken and I hope this message is clearly understood by the British Nation.
I fear that Sir John's hopes are doomed to failure, because I doubt whether the message is understood by the Government, and much less by the British nation, which shows every sign of lapsing back into the complacent indolence that existed up until April 1982. As the British Maritime League, the General Council of British Shipping and the Select Committee have graphically illustrated, the past few years have seen a dramatic decline in the number of ships in the British merchant fleet, down to about 760 merchant ships of 500 deadweight tonnes or more, as well as a dramatic decline in the number of British officers and ratings. That decline continues inexorably onwards month by month.
Unfortunately, by the end of this decade, the number of ships in the British-manned, owned and registered merchant fleet could be reduced to virtually nil. Can nothing be done to help? Are we just to accept it supinely? I agree with everything that has been said about the lack of corporate approach by the Government. Matters have not been helped by the Budget of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, although I supported its general thrust, which was quite first class. Unfortunately,


the British shipping companies and British merchant seamen, both officers and men, have been badly hit by the provisions relating to capital allowances and income tax for those who spend a considerable part of their working lives abroad. Perhaps that effect was not realised at the time, but that is what has happened. At a time when they are already on the ropes, it is almost the coup de grace.
I should like to make some positive suggestions. First, of course, we want competition and efficiency, but that competition must be fair. Soviet liners and passenger ships charge below their operating costs, which is not fair. There should be some maritime anti-dumping legislation—if that is the right phrase—and we should at least insist on reciprocity. How many British cruise liners can pick up Russians at Murmansk or Leningrad on subsidised fares? I suspect that the answer is, not very many. We must understand that not only Soviet cargo and other merchant ships, but the trans-Siberian railway as well, are part of Soviet economic policy. The Soviet Union does not regard pricing or profit and loss in the same way as the Western world does. If we have not yet understood that, we have understood very little indeed. Again, action needs to be taken so that competition is at least fair, and reasonable prices are charged.
Secondly, we should have a tax regime that encourages, and does not penalise, shipowners and their crews. Thirdly, as the Select Committee recommends, details should be published each year of the merchant ships that are available for requisition in an emergency, together with a comparison for the previous years.
Incidentally, the question posed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne was very good and should be answered. Merchant ships that are fitted with certain defence equipment—whether involving communications, close-in weapons systems, replenishment at sea, or whatever — could qualify for annual revenue payments to keep that equipment up to date and properly serviceable. In a very modest way, the cash flows of those companies could thus be helped. In addition, the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Transport would know that at a minimal cost a whole series of ships had all the modern and up-to-date equipment needed if there was ever a "Corporate" sort of conflict or a much more serious conflict in the north Atlantic.
Instead of earmarking many skilled Royal Naval personnel, whom we just do not have — and are increasingly unlikely to have—to man merchant ships that are fitted with chaff dispensers or the new close-in weapons systems which I know the Ministry is considering, why not have a major drive on that Cinderella of reserves, the Royal Naval Reserve? In that way, we could ensure that British merchant seamen were enrolled in the appropriate lists of the Reserve and were given the training to man the chaff dispensers, and communications and weapons systems. They would be more than capable of doing that, and with their refresher training, pay and bounties, it would represent a practical way of enabling the British merchant marine to ease the load of the Royal Navy while at the same time giving a much-needed boost to the Royal Naval Reserve. I hope that I have made those suggestions in a positive and constructive way, and that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will discuss them with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport so that we can meet a very serious problem.
I do not exclude the possibility of joint funding for certain ships. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has mentioned the new type of one-stop ship. There could be joint funding by the Ministery of Defence and the shipping companies, perhaps even on a wet or dry lease basis, so that we have at least a basic minimum in terms of tankers, cargo ships and all the specialist ships that are required to meet our security needs as well as our commercial and economic requirements. Without that basic minimum, I fear that in a few years time Britain and the north Atlantic nations generally could find themselves deprived of their essential requirements in terms of reinforcement and re-supply. That is not just my view, or that of the Select Committee, but the view of several very senior NATO Officers to whom I spoke at the Sea Link symposium in Annapolis last week.
The Merchant Navy is now facing a crisis and time is running out. We cannot wait another year until the next White Paper to see whether anything can be done about it, so I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will consider those matters.
I make no apology for returning to my other worry, that of resources. I think that all will be reasonably well for the next two or three years, but unless more money is available we shall not be able to fit in Trident, the major aircraft programmes and the major programmes for the Army and the Navy, at the end of this decade. We must face up to that fact, and decide what we are to cast away, or change the policy and agree to increase expenditure by 3 to 4 per cent. in real terms. Incidentally, I am not trying to anticipate what the Select Committee will discuss.
However, unless we start to take decisions now, we shall end up with the worst of all worlds. We shall spend a lot of money on developing Trident and other weapons systems so far and then, when the money runs out, we shall have to cancel, with all the cancellation charges involved. Money will have gone down the drain and the morale of the services will plummet. That will do my party no good politically and, much more importantly, it will do this country's security no good either.

Mr. David Young: I regret that the Government base their defence strategy on nuclear weapons. I have never understood the argument for having an independent nuclear deterrent because it means that we must either pay a great deal of money for an expensive toy or assume that the United States has opted out of supporting the Alliance.
The Government's determination to place cruise missiles in Britain has ensured that we shall be a primary target if a war breaks out. I assume that there is no question of us surviving the United States. There is an argument for saying that both the United States and Russia would be prepared to see a limited nuclear war here rather than have one between themselves. If we view defence issues flexibly we cannot disregard that probability.
For a country with our limited resources it is incredible that we should take on board the vast and escalating costs of Trident and at the same time argue that we have the resources to support our conventional forces. In recent years Britain has been more and more involved in limited wars. The issues become clear when one considers the Falklands campaign. Now that the horse has bolted and disappeared the Government are determined to remedy some of the issues. When we fought the Falklands


campaign we did not take on a major first-class power but a very small one indeed. If the Argentinians had launched their attack six months or 12 months later we should not have had the resources to send even a fleet, let alone anything else. When we took Port Stanley some of our batteries were down to six rounds per gun.
If we send men into limited wars we have a responsibility to ensure that they have the necessary resources. The Army equipment exhibition is now at Aldershot. I suppose that one can argue about the connection between defence equipment, employment and exports of military equipment. We should not forget that nearly all the men killed in the Falklands campaign were killed by weapons which, if not supplied by us, were supplied by our allies. All hon. Members must ask themselves how many pounds raised equals one British life lost. Politicians must examine arms sales in detail. If arms sold by us are eventually used against our own people we should all be concerned.
A major employer in the Bolton area is British Aerospace at Lostock. Supplies were being sent to Argentina within weeks of hostilities being declared. One of my major nightmares was that some Bolton lad would be killed by a missile produced in that factory. We must consider the implications of our arms sale policy. The Labour Government were also involved in such sales, but two wrongs do not make a right. We must consider our forces when we send them to do a job.

Mr. Robert Atkins: The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Mr. Young) understands the difficulties. What would he say to British Aerospace workers in Manchester who face the prospect of production winding down because of the Nimrod line closing? It is suggested that we might be able to sell Coastguarders to replace Shackletons for maritime patrols in South Africa. Does he think that the jobs and production lines in Manchester are more important than selling aeroplanes to South Africa, with all the problems that that involves?

Mr. Young: One must balance political judgment. I say that the problem should be considered. I do not dodge the implication. The guys who get the cash are not the guys who face an attack. It is easy to argue in favour of profit if one is not the guy who is facing an Exocet missile. That is the issue. We can be fighting ourselves. We talk about the Russian threat, but the Americans and the Common Market countries are busy feeding the Russians because of the profit motive.
We face a difficult problem. There is no neat solution. We must consider the potential danger of selling weapons that can destroy the men whom we send to fight.
No hon. Member would consider selling weapons to Ireland, but we sell them to regimes which are just as potentially dangerous and with which we could be involved. If I had a quick solution I should give it, but at least I am honest enough to pose the question.

Mr. Roland Boyes: The weapons industry has experienced some of the largest job losses in the past few years. We cannot blame peace activists for that. Management, company policy and profiteering must be responsible.

Mr. Young: About 200 jobs in Bolton were disposed of because the Government decided to go for an American system—the Harpoon—rather than a British system, the

Sea Eagle. The workers point out to me forcibly that we lost not only the jobs but the technology. There is no neat equation.
We are forming a morality to fit our cheque books. I condemn that system. There is no easy solution and no simple party argument can be used. The argument is whether morality or cash comes before the life of the soldier. We cannot regard defence commitments without also considering foreign affairs. One of the lessons of the Falklands campaign was that there was a definitive lack of communication between the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence.
British forces are now committed in Cyprus. For 20 years we have made the highest commitment to UN forces there. An explosive and divisive situation on that island has dragged on for months and many of us believe that the Americans are not too sad about it. Where is the initiative of the Foreign Office on that issue? If there is a war on that island, the British contingent to the United Nations force will be involved. I agree that we back the Secretary-General's motives but as a guarantor of the treaty this House should be taking a positive step to create the circumstances that would permit the island to unite once more. We cannot go along with the events there and not speak out against the unilateral declaration of independence and, at the same time, argue that the treaty is being observed. The Government must act on that matter.
I am worried by a statistical abstract for the United States for 1982–83, which shows that the United Kingdom has moved from 10th place in 1978 to sixth place in 1981 as a major purchaser of United States arms and equipment. My great worry about British Aerospace, Lostock, and the purchase of Harpoon rather than Sea Eagle is that we are depending increasingly on American weaponry and the technology that goes with it. Will the Government review that? How can we talk about being independent if our technology and weaponry depend on those of another country, albeit an ally? American intervention in Grenada underlines that point. To be independent is a matter not merely of words but of independent resources, independent forces and complete independence from anyone who may have different interests in the same area.
Finally, I am worried that when the merger between Thorn-EMI and British Aerospace was mooted on 16 May, the Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry seemed to suggest that the Government would stand apart. I hope that when companies merge, one company remains a major supplier of weaponry to the British forces. That is seen as important not only for commerce but for the Ministry of Defence. We cannot claim to be independent if our technology is not independent, and the companies producing that technology are not independent companies that may have foreign interests.

Mr. Julian Amery: In response to your appeal for brevity, Mr. Speaker, I shall confine myself to one subject. I shall speak about the proposals of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for staff centralisation in the Ministry of Defence and the consequent weakening of the chiefs of staff organisation. The matter is of vital importance and I hope that the House will bear with me if I go into it in some detail.
As I understand the proposal, the chiefs of staff and the chief scientists are guaranteed access to the Secretary of State. But they are to report to him through the Chief of


Defence Staff and the permanent under-secretary. They are to be deprived of the vice-chiefs of the individual services—that is, of the section of staff responsible for strategic as distinct from administrative policy.
I am worried about my right hon. Friend's approach to the matter. Paragraph 211 of the defence White Paper states:
the issues which faced the authors of the 1963 White Paper on the Central Organisation for Defence still remain largely unresolved. The Ministry of Defence has survived as a federal structure, based on three largely autonomous Service Departments.
The meaning of that statement is clear. The Secretary of State dislikes the present position and wishes to move towards closer integration. But is closer integration necessary or desirable? Why has the Ministry of Defence remained federal, 20 years after Lord Mountbatten's proposals? The basic reason is the tremendous difficulty of separating strategy from administration. A basic principle of British military thinking has been that the one cannot be separated from the other. Perhaps it would be possible if we had a single service, as the Canadians tried to have, but it is not under our present system. I understand from the White Paper that my right hon. Friend adheres firmly to the existence of three separate services, so we face the problem of how strategic policy can be separated from administration.
In 1963, which is a long time ago, our military posture was very different from what it is today. We had important headquarters in the Mediterranean, Aden and Singapore, where the commander-in-chief was responsible for all three services. The action was there. The action in Kuwait involved the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. So it was in Singapore, in the "confrontation" against Sukarno, during which the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) found himself in improbable association with Sir Walter Walker in a successful campaign. Our operations then were national and tri-service. We may have more of them. The Falklands is a more recent example. It is more likely, however, that in foreseeable military operations we shall co-operate with our allies in NATO and even in those outside NATO. If the Gulf were to catch fire, we would be likely to intervene, if we intervened at all, with the United States and France.
If I am right in this, co-operation between our individual services and those of other countries could be at least as important as co-operation between our own different services. Obviously, in NATO, co-operation between the United States navy and the Royal Navy is of major importance. So is co-operation between the Royal Air Force and the United States air force. Our air forces are side by side in East Anglia. When I was in the Air Ministry, co-operation with the United States air force at professional and political levels was of vital importance.
Could it be that, since 1963, inter-allied co-operation has reduced the need for integration and strengthened the importance of co-operation between the individual British services and their foreign counterparts? If so, should we not enhance rather than downgrade the authority of the service chiefs and, in this world of fast-moving technology, of the chief scientists? I remember well the immense authority that Lord Zuckerman wielded in Washington when he was a chief scientist at the Ministry

of Defence. There might even be a case—I throw this out for the benefit of ambitious colleagues—for reviving the service Ministers in some form.
The strength of the old system was that middle-rank officers had easy access to their professional chiefs—the chiefs of staff—and to their political chiefs. Today the pyramid at the Ministry of Defence is immensely steep and will become much steeper if the proposals go ahead. The downgrading of the service leaders could be dangerous to morale and could jeopardise civilian control. I do not say that we should return to the pre-1963 formula, but need we go further than we are at present in the direction of integration? Did not the successful Falklands campaign confirm that the formula is about right now?
Any Secretary of State has two main responsibilities. One is to make the most efficient use of the financial and human resources at his disposal and to ensure a minimum of duplication, delay and waste. For that purpose, business techniques can be extremely useful. Mr. McNamara tried to introduce them into the United States defence establishment, with varying success. Cost-effectiveness can never be a substitute for profitability, but I support what my right hon. Friend is doing with the proposed office of management and budget. His experience of business and at the Department of the Environment justifies him in going ahead with the proposals.
However, will the elimination of the vice-chiefs of staff, apart from saving a few jobs, make any contribution to the maximum efficiency of financial and human resources? Yet the loss of their advice could be felt deeply in the Secretary of State's other and greater responsibility, which is for strategy. He should play a major part in determining Britain's overseas policies. Some issues before him will be concerned only with the policies of single services. There might be arguments about whether priority should be given to surface ships or to submarines, or about the evaluation of weapons systems. Some will call for a broader defence view. Is the forward strategy in Germany for the defence of central Europe appropriate? What should our attitude be towards the threat of chemical warfare? At what point, and how, should tactical nuclear weapons be used? What will be the impact of the "star wars" programme on our present thinking and future plans?
There are also many problems at the interface of defence and foreign policies, including proposals for the reform of NATO and whether we should encourage the revival of the Western European Union. How much weight should be put on the defence of our out-of-area interests? How can we monitor the proposals for arms control? In all those areas, efficiency cannot be measured by cost-effectiveness; they are matters of judgment. Preventing or winning a war is not a matter of efficiency; the problem is how to judge the right line to take.
Every Secretary of State, even a Haldane or Churchill, is by definition an amateur, however much he may think he knows about warfare. All he can do, as the Minister in control, is choose among the options put to him or to encourage fresh thinking. There is a good French saying:
To govern is to choose.
That is all that a Minister can do—to choose between the options or modify them. But if the options are presented by only one Chief of the Defence Staff, backed by only one staff, instead of by four chiefs of staff and the chief scientists, how much choice will the Secretary of State have?
Lord Cameron, either in another place or in a letter to The Times, talked about his fear of a strong Secretary of State and a weak Chief of the Defence Staff. I would be more worried the other way: if we had a strong Chief of the Defence Staff and a run-of-the-mill Secretary of State, how could the latter stand up to the advice given to him? He would avoid becoming a mere public relations officer for his Department, and nothing more than that, only if the options were put before him by the different services and the chief scientists. My right hon. Friend is certainly a good public relations officer, but I hope he will be much more than that. I have much higher ambitions for him, as I hope he has for himself.
When I was at the Air Ministry, I found the arguments among the chiefs of staff extremely constructive. There were arguments about aircraft carriers as against aircraft based on scattered islands; about whether the deterrent should be seaborne or airborne; about how far it was important to have bases east of Suez or whether ships could take their place; and about how strategic tactical nuclear weaponry should be used.
It is perhaps worth recalling that in the second world war, from 1940 until 1945, Sir Winston Churchill did not even have a Chief of the Defence Staff. He had a relatively junior officer, General Ismay, to act as liaison officer with the chiefs and to report on what they were thinking, although he could not give them orders or intervene much in their discussions. Churchill was his own Chief of the Defence Staff when it was necessary, and we did not do too badly.
On the other side of the line, German commentators have often said that one reason why Hitler lost the war in Russia was that he over-centralised. Although the OKW enabled him to impose his will on the army, he was denied the choice of options that he might have had with a less centralised organisation.
I beg my right hon. Friend not to underrate the importance of his job. He is not just a manager who ensures that money is spent effectively. He is at the head of the most powerful war machine that Britain has ever had. No British First Lord of the Admiralty had anything like four Polaris submarines, let alone Trident and other new weaponry, at his disposal. At a time when the danger is great, my right hon. Friend will need the broadest spectrum of professional and scientific advice if he is to bring all this qualities to the fulfilment of his work.
In another place, my noble Friend Lord Trefgarne said that the decisions for reorganising the central staff are not final. I hope that my right hon. Friend's mind is not closed. By all means let him strengthen the Chief of the Defence Staff if he wishes to, but he should not restrict the access of the other chiefs of staff and the chief scientists to the Secretary of State. Let them come as a matter of routine, not as a special provision. If they do not, they will be relegated to a subordinate role in the eyes of the services and their allies. Let them keep their strategic vice-chiefs and staffs, and let my right hon. Friend ensure that the options are debated freely in front of him and that he has a wide spectrum of choice.

Mr. Roland Boyes: I shall follow the example of the right hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) and speak to a single

topic, but before doing so I wish to refer to the hypocrisy of the Secretary of State when he referred to lack of talks aimed at achieving peace.
I wish to draw the attention of the House to the Government's voting record on nuclear matters at the United Nations. In December 1983 we voted 27 times. On four occasions we voted positively, on 13 occasions we voted against resolutions, and on 10 occasions we abstained. To demonstrate how isolated we were, I take two examples at random. One of the United Nations resolutions was on the cessation of all nuclear weapons test explosions. Only two countries voted against, one of which was the United Kingdom. There was another resolution on general and complete disarmament — a review and supplement to the comprehensive study of the question of nuclear-weapon-free zones in all its aspects. A total of 146 nations voted for, none against and three abstained, one of which was the United Kingdom. Consequently, the Secretary of State's opening remarks were unconvincing and do not stand up to any serious analysis. In fact, our voting record at the United Nations, particularly on the two resolutions to which I have referred, has been shocking to say the least.
Paragraph 8 of annex A to the defence Estimates states:
The development and deployment of long-range cruise missiles is one of the more significant developments in the past year … and deployment of sea-launched cruise missiles … on submarines and surface ships is expected from the middle of this year.
In an interesting debate on cruise missiles, in which my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) made a brilliant speech, we covered in great detail the problem of ground-launched cruise missiles. However, to the problems that that causes for the British people we must now add a new dimension. Ground-launched cruise missiles took us into a new, dark area, but the problems that we shall face once there are a large number of sea-launched cruise missiles will be many and difficult.
It is expected that as many as 9,000 cruise missiles could be built, approximately half of which will be Tomahawk missiles. Many of them will have nuclear warheads. We are not exactly sure how many. but the guesstimate is between 15 and 25 per cent. In other words, 1,000 cruise missiles could be placed on surface ships and submarines.
The United States is already preparing about 76 ships and 80 submarines to be equipped with these deadly and lethal weapons. These long-range weapons can travel approximately 1,500 miles and are very accurate. They can land within 100 yards of a target, and together with Pershing 2, MX and similar weaponry, offer a tremendous first-strike potential for NATO forces.
These weapons have not yet reached their full potential and development. Given massive improvements which will make them virtually undetectable — they are extremely difficult to detect even at their present level of development—they will become more accurate. They will be fitted with a special facility to determine whether the first target has been destroyed and, if so, will be programmed to fly on to a second target. The cliché in radar terms is that this weapon has the signature of a seagull. In other words, the strength of this weapon is its virtual undetectability.
The problems for the United Kingdom will be compounded by the development of sea-launched cruise


missiles. We do not know how many, although we have some idea of the number of ground-launched cruise missiles that will be stationed in Britain.
There is also the problem of control. The Government tell us continually that the ground-launched cruise missiles are under joint control, but those of us who have visited the Greenham common base and talked to the people in charge know full well that only the United States is responsible for determining when ground-launched cruise missiles are fired.
If sea-launched cruise missiles are stationed on American ships in British waters, they will be completely under the control of American forces. We know that about 100 ground-launched cruise missiles will operate on British territory, but there could be 1,000 sea-launched cruise missiles on ships and submarines in British territorial waters.

Mr. Paddy Ashdown: I share many of the hon. Gentleman's concerns about cruise missiles, but I was surprised when he referred to them as a first-strike weapon. It is true that cruise missiles fly very low, but they also travel very slowly and it will take them four hours to get to Moscow. Even if they avoid radar detection, does the hon. Gentleman not believe that about 100 of these weapons flying at 50 ft over the German border will wake somebody up?

Mr. Boyes: Given the work that the hon. Gentleman has done in this area, he belittles himself by asking that question. If a nuclear war were to start, it is obvious that cruise missiles would follow the Pershing 2s and other missiles that were fired first. The cruise missiles would be used in a mopping-up operation.
I shall not get drawn into the first strike-second strike argument, because that allows us to be deflected from the main danger, which is that cruise missiles have made Britain a more dangerous place in which to live. Whether they are first strike, second strike or 121st strike does not reduce that danger.
To discover whether sea-launched cruise missiles pose a danger I referred back to questions about the number of ships visiting British ports. The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Thomas) asked how many ships and submarines from the United States visited our ports between 1979 and the latest date for which information was available. It appears that American ships visit 14 different ports and that an average of 40 ships and three or four submarines do so each year. That reveals the magnitude of the dangers facing us, because we cannot possibly know how many of those ships are carrying cruise missiles.
Recently I asked the Secretary of the State for Defence
whether he will put a limit on the number of sea-based cruise missiles that can be in British territorial water at any time".
The Minister of State for the Armed Forces gave the simple, definitive answer:
No".—[Official Report, 7 June 1984; Vol. 61, c. 230.]
Today I have tabled further questions to ascertain what conditions, if any, American ships must satisfy before being allowed into British waters.
The Minister was vague when he answered my right hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Mr. Freeson). He was deliberately vague about whether the Americans would make use of facilities at Holy Loch, because there

had been no request to bring vessels carrying sea-launched cruise missiles to the United Kingdom. Under what conditions will the Minister allow those ships into British ports?
Most hon. Members—even Conservative Members—want arms talks leading to mutual and verifiable reductions. That would make Britain in particular and the world in general a safer place. The danger with the sea-launched cruise missile is that it is impossible to verify how many there are and where they are. It is extremely difficult with ground-launched cruise missiles, because they are mobile and can be trundled around the country. Even though satellites can be used to count them, the worst has to be assumed because the Soviets cannot take into account that what appear to be two missiles in different locations is in fact one missile being trundled around the country. But there is no way that one can find out how many sea-launched cruise missiles there are. It is a small missile which can fit on almost anything from a rowing boat to an aircraft carrier. How will the Soviets or any other enemy know which ships are carrying cruise missiles, whether they are nuclear or conventional weapons and where they are at any one time? If they cannot be verified—an essential part of arms talks—how can we ever take a step along the road to peace?
By allowing sea-launched cruise missiles into our ports the Government are endangering not only Britain but the whole nuclear scene. Let us look at what some Americans have to say about that. Christopher Paine of the Federation of American Scientists called the sea-launched cruise missile
a monstrous and wholly gratuitous complication for arms control.
The Centre for Defence Information calls it
the greatest danger to arms control.
In other words, the development and operation of this weapon is leading to the point where arms control talks may be finished for all time.
The American Republican Senator, Charles Mathias of Maryland, said:
if you start this particular kind of arms race"—
the sea-launched cruise missile—
it will be absolutely impossible to get reductions. In five years, as the Russians catch up
there is no doubt that they are well behind us at the moment—
we will put ourselves in a position in which all the principles of arms control will be destroyed.
One of the key spokesmen in the United States, Ambassador Smith, followed that up by saying:
it is too often forgotten that the progress we have made in nuclear arms control to date has depended very importantly on the fact that weapons systems involved have been relatively very visible to the kind of surveillance technology that we had developed. This all-important visibility may end with the deployment of sea-launched cruise missiles. The naval cruise missiles, therefore, stand a very good chance of increasing the indeterminacy of the strategic threat in the 1980s and 1990s and of undermining one of the key foundations of arms limitation agreements.
The variety of different launching platforms and military technology making surveillance impossible have put us in a nightmare position. We have moved from a difficult position, to a virtually impossible position, to an absolutely impossible position. We should look to the strategic arms reduction talks. In an important article in The Christian Science Monitor, Thomas Hirschfeld, a


former senior arms control negotiator and a retired State Department official, put the matter as well as it could be put. He said:
once the long-range cruise missiles are deployed, the Soviets will want to take account of them in START. Under existing rules, they will count the entire US sea-based cruise missile force as nuclear, insist on limiting their numbers, or on reducing them or getting compensation for them out of other parts of the US strategic forces.
We have got ourselves into an impossible position. The world is becoming more dangerous daily, but talks to reduce the tension and danger are getting nearer and nearer to the point of being absolutely impossible. We must get out of that vicious circle. The Government must take positive, vital and urgent action. They must work to bring some sanity to the arms talks. They must work to increase the safety of our people as a contribution to the struggle for world peace. To do that it is necessary that the Government rid our land of ground-launched cruise missiles and all our territorial waters of sea-launched cruise missiles.
Labour Members will work and struggle to rid our lands and waters of all nuclear weapons. We are the party with the real concern for the defence of our people. We realise that as long as we have cruise missiles of any kind in our land and seas we must be the first prime target for any attack by an aggressor.

Mr. Julian Critchley: I shall be brief indeed. I have long believed that there is far too much oratory in this place. In another place, Lord Carver said last week that the Secretary of State should focus upon weapons procurement—presumably in Europe—and stop worrying his generals. Has he a point? I rather suspect that Lord Carver has.
Some hon. Members will know that in the Secretary of State's office in the huge Ministry of Defence hangs a superb oil painting by Orpen of David Lloyd George. I gather that the Secretary of State moves with it from one appointment to another. But why hang a portrait of David Lloyd George in the Secretary of State's office at the Ministry of Defence? My right hon. Friend and I studied history together at Oxford and I remember how conscientious a student he used to be. But surely he recalls the conflict between the soldiers and the "frocks" in the great war. Lloyd George was greatly loved, but not by soldiers. Why not put up a portrait of Hore-Belisha instead?
Will the end of the growth in defence spending coincide with the term of office of the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence? By April 1986 he will have been there for more than three years. If so, I do not envy his successor. Indeed, after 1986 there could be a reduction in spending, leading to a process of disarmament through inflation. Is the House aware of that prospect? Is the Conservative party in the Commons aware of that prospect? Has it thought through the implications of no real growth in defence spending after 1986, especially if we were to purchase a more expensive conventional defence, thereby raising the nuclear threshold? I do not think that we have thought this through.
Today, the editor of The Times has remounted his old hobby horse. He is calling for a major reduction in the numbers of the British Army of the Rhine. It is an editorial that he rewrites three times a year. Yet the lead story in The Sunday Times yesterday was about an amendment on

the part of Senator Sam Nunn, to be moved in the Senate, which would link the withdrawal of 100,000 American troops from Europe with a far greater defence effort on the part of the European members of NATO. How would the Secretary of State respond to the amendment were it to be passed in both Houses of Congress, and what message has the Secretary of State for Mr. Charlie Douglas-Home?
What, then, are the most useful things that the Secretary of State can do? He can squeeze the profit margins of our defence industries—and about time. He can streamline the apparatus of the Ministry of Defence, but he must recognise that there are limits to such an exercise, and costs. He can be nice to the Western European Union.
We are witnessing the resurrection of the Western European Union—proof, as if it were needed, of life after death. In the past the French have flirted outrageously with that somewhat middle-aged body. Has Monsieur Mauroy at last consummated the affair? I have spent the best years of my life introducing reports in the Assembly of the Western European Union which no one ever bothered to read. At the recently held meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the WEU, Monsieur Mitterrand and Monsieur Mauroy—why are other people's Socialists far more attractive than our own?—put forward proposals that the Western European Union, the heart of European NATO, should organise collectively the production of arms. I hope that Her Majesty's Government support the idea. We do not wish to rely exclusively on the American arms industry for advanced technology. It used to be said in my day in Paris that one could sleep as well in the Avenue Wilson—Woodrow, not Harold—as anywhere in Paris. Perhaps that will no longer be true in the future.
Finally, I understand that a serving soldier will soon become Britain's first astronaut. Has the Secretary of State any plans for putting a woman in space? [Laughter.] If so, will he confide in us and answer some of the questions that I have raised today when he winds up this two-day debate, not this year, I understand, but next year?

Mr. D. E. Thomas: I shall not attempt to pursue any of the metaphors or the parable of the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley). But it cannot be denied that in his opening speech the Secretary of State shot himself in the foot when he discussed deterrence.
When I began to have to take an interest in defence policy in the 1960s we always heard about "the deterrent". I noticed that some Government supporters who still think of war in 19th-century terms used that phrase today. However, in discussions with the Secretary of State and with American and Soviet strategists the term "deterrent" has now become "deterrence"—a process of deterrence.
In this debate and in the White Paper, the Secretary of State is trying to persuade those sections of the British public and the Western European public who increasingly are becoming desensitised by the appalling prospect of the arms build-up, arms sophistication and the war-fighting strategy, and the mass campaigns of the peace movement throughout Western Europe and increasingly concerned about the prospect of the reality of a nuclear exchange that, somehow, deterrence is still a stable concept and an idea which has guaranteed and can guarantee peace. The right hon. Gentleman repeated the statement that we have heard


so often from people in his position, that it was the existence of nuclear weapons that had guaranteed the peace of Europe for 40 years.
I ask the Secretary of State one simple question, and I shall not press him to answer anything else that I ask him if he answers this question. How long does he expect the existing idea of deterrence to protect us from nuclear war?
I read the Secretary of State a quotation from Ken Booth, of the international politics department of the University College of Wales. Writing in a recent book on the dangers of deterrence, he says:
Will the nuclear threat always protect us from nuclear war? It is doubtful, and the past is a poor guide, for less than forty years is only a moment in human history. The absence of a nuclear war in such a brief period offers little grounds for unlimited confidence about the indefinite future. The nuclear age is still in its infancy, and, in the long term, we should recognise that in the Argentinian scrap-metal workers in South Georgia, and in the wounded Israeli Ambassador in London, there lurked the ghost of Archduke Ferdinand.
I ask the Secretary of State to address himself to that question. How long do the British Government consider that deterrence can maintain peace in their terms, and how long does he consider that international security can depend on that concept?
As the Secretary of State said when he was shooting himself in the foot, it is a concept that he cannot use both ways. Either he has a credible deterrent or he has not. Paragraph 124 of the section of the White Paper, which discusses developments in NATO's defence posture, yet again throws up the contradiction at the very base of the idea of deterrence as somehow being a stable concept.
Paragraph 124 reads as follows:
In sum, the aim of the Alliance remains to sustain an effective triad of forces—conventional, theatre nuclear and strategic nuclear—to ensure the continued credibility of the Alliance strategy of flexible response. We believe that this strategy remains the basis of a credible deterrent, and that there is no better alternative available. This is not to say that we cannot enhance our deterrent posture".
A credible deterrent, therefore, by the right hon. Gentleman's own logic and according to his own White Paper, is not a static concept. It needs to be enhanced. As a sop to the peace movement the paragraph adds:
and reduce further the risks of conflict within the existing strategic framework.
In other words, the notion of deterrence is itself an unstable notion, and I shall try to argue briefly that the notion of deterrence is a con for a continued, escalating arms race. That is the experience of the past 40 years of the nuclear era, and it seems to be the increasingly likely experience of the next 40 years until we get that devastating nuclear exchange, with all the consequences for the biosphere, the ecosphere and the environment of which we have learnt recently.
I am not concerned about replying to some of the detailed arguments set out in the White Paper about the balance of nuclear forces other than to say that the way in which the White Paper is couched and the graphs are drawn is calculated to establish in the public mind the idea that we are aiming for some kind of balance of forces, that we have got it wrong, and that the Soviets are in the lead.
The arguments are deployed in such a way that the figures used are delivery systems and not warheads. We know that already in 1984 the United States has more than 10,000 strategic warheads and that the Soviet Union has about 8,700. There was a substantial increase in the United

States numbers in the 1960s and 1970s, but this has levelled off, and we are moving into a position where, by 1990, the United States will have 17,500 warheads and the Soviet Union some 14,500.
We are therefore in the middle of a major strategic nuclear arms race. This is what the Secretary of State, in his sentimental affection for the concept of a stable deterrent, seems to deny, and therefore he is forgoing any move towards a negotiated reduction in that strategic nuclear arms race. He cannot have it both ways. Either hė has a stable deterrent that works or he has a deterrent that must continually be enhanced in its credibility, which can mean only one thing—a continued indulgence in the strategic nuclear arms race. If that is not the case, I should like to have it explained to me how we can have a continued stable deterrent that is not continually enhanced and therefore does not lead to an arms race. Does the Minister wish to intervene on that point?

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence Procurement (Mr. John Lee): No.

Mr. Thomas: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will reply when he winds up.
The Government expect us to believe in this mythical notion of deterrence as if it were something that has been scientifically and objectively proven, or as if it has a firm scientific or strategic base. It is no use waiting to see whether it fails and then setting up a committee to find out what went wrong, because by then it will be too late.
The whole idea behind nuclear deterrence is that no one would ever dare use these weapons because they are too awful. This is the root of the problem. If they are too awful to use, the threat to use them is not credible and they are no longer a deterrent. The arms race is the result of the idea of the deterrent and is a frantic attempt to make the incredible credible. As we know, the arsenals of the super-powers are enough to turn the entire planet into a meaningless lump of rock, yet we are told in all seriousness that we do not yet have enough of a deterrent to be credible.
The problem for the military is that, after searching for centuries for yet more firepower, they suddenly find that they have so much that they cannot use it. The solution that they have developed is to threaten to incinerate the planet a second time. It is not sufficient to do the job in a couple of hour; to be credible, one must be able to use nuclear weapons in a tactical way as if they were no more significant than high explosives.
The drive of the arguments employed by strategists shows clearly the ways in which the ideas of an alleged deterrence have developed to make nuclear war thinkable and nuclear weapons usable. There is a filthy technological determination about the way in which the strategists make deterrence credible—in other words, make the weapon potentially usable. Therefore, by talking about it as strategists and defence experts do, they make it acceptable to the public that such developments should take place.
Krass, writing in the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute yearbook 1981 on the evolution of military technology and deterrence strategy, made this point. He stressed:
the strategies of flexible counter-force and extended deterrence which have now evolved are hardly distinguishable from the coercive strategies and threat and counter-threat which have characterised the politics of the industrialised world for over a


century … both the purpose and effect of military technological efforts since 1945 have been to overcome notions that nuclear weapons are unusable and that nuclear war is unthinkable. The 1970s in particular have produced technological solutions to many of the limitations which in past years have inhibited national leaders from using nuclear weapons as instruments of political coercion and military power.
The use of the available systems is for making nuclear weapons usable. Richard Burt, who is a senior member of the present United States Administration, said this in NATO Review in 1982 when he was talking about the evolution of the United States START approach. He said:
Systems which threaten the other side's forces with quick, pre-emptive destruction are destabilising because they undermine the other side's confidence in its deterrent capability. In a crisis situation, this could result in a temptation to use these systems first out of a fear of losing them.
Therefore, now, instead of having the idea of safe, second-strike forces stabilising the crisis, there are increasing perceptions of first-strike possibilities making the situation even more unstable.
As the Secretary of State accepts, or appears to accept, every American strategic innovation as part of British policy and acceptable to Britain, and as he goes along with all this, what is his position on the increasing move towards usuable nuclear weapons and thinkable nuclear war? Where does he stand in terms of, in particular, the air-land battle strategy developed by the Americans? Although he hides behind the argument that this is not NATO strategy and therefore is not something for which he is accountable, America is the leading partner in the Alliance, and is therefore able to dictate its own strategies within its military exercises on the continent of Europe. Presumably the Americans are neutralising the strategy that includes the use of nuclear weapons. The Secretary of State has to disengage himself from this continual acceptance of every new war-fighting strategy that emerges from the other side of the Atlantic.
Increasingly, there has been a desperate search by the military for ways to continue to make its deterrent more credible. The result is that we now have people developing strategies, and weapons are being developed in parallel with those strategies or in anticipation of them with people believing that this can create security and stability. I tell the Conservative Members who take a sentimental interest in defence that in the history books, for every battle of Britain there is a charge of the Light Brigade and for every D-Day there is a Dunkirk, a Somme or a Suez. When will we have the nuclear Suez?
In the middle east, South America, South Africa or Europe—I am talking about countries or areas where nuclear weapons are or will be deployed—when will we get to the situation in which there will be a series of critical developments such as those we have seen throughout the history of warfare? Those of us who have tried to study history should know how wars happen. They do not happen because people believe in stable structures of deterrence but because allegedly stable structures of deterrence break down. The difference is that in our generation when those structures break down the result is the incineration of the planet and the destruction of our environment.
The Secretary of State has completely failed to address himself to the issue of his apparent policy on multilateral alternatives and multilateral disarmament. I quote again from Ken Booth, who argues strongly in the book from which I quoted earlier::

Multilateral disarmament on any significant scale is an illusion. It is contrary to the nature of states. Consequently, multilateral disarmament policies must therefore be regarded as a cheat — a tactic in the business of arms competition. Governments pursue such policies largely for propaganda purposes and, if successful, to enhance their own security in relation to a competitor. At present 'multilateralism' is more often than not a symbol by which the supporters of existing strategies are attempting to undermine the anti-nuclear momentum of the 'peace movement'. Multilateral disarmament negotiations are an exercise in which (a) it will be demonstrated that the adversary is unreasonable and uncooperative, and so the continuation of existing armaments policies will be justified, or (b) an attempt will be made to manouevre the adversary into accepting a disadvantageous agreement. Disarmament talks have little to do with comprehensive disarmament or international security. It is not surprising therefore that so many people are so cynical.
It is not only academic experts like Ken Booth who have arrived at the position of creative hard unilateralism, as he calls it, with his cynicism about the alleged mulitilateral position of the British and American Governments; it is the many thousands and millions of people throughout the Western world who see through the failures of the British Government and the American Government and, of course, the Soviet Government, to move towards a position of real negotiation of disarmament. As, long as we have Governments and Secretaries of State who seem to believe that deterrence is stable, all they are doing is creating the intellectual capability for megadeath.

Sir Patrick Wall: This country is almost unique in that throughout its history it has pursued a combination of continental and maritime strategies. The question that we have to face today is whether we have the balance right. I believe that at present we have, but I have some fears for the future. While my contribution may be more technical than is normally the case, at least it is based in a number of years' experience in the North Atlantic Assembly.
I start with continental strategy. I am not one of those who wish to see BAOR cut down now that it has come down to its treaty limit of 55,000, but I believe that there are some weaknesses which must be remedied. Before discussing those weaknesses we must consider the Soviet technique in ground warfare, and then we can consider how it can be countered. The Soviet technique is to attack on a number of fronts and then exploit any particular breakthrough. NATO has therefore to kill 40 per cent. of Soviet armour in the first three days to bring about a reasonable balance.
Each Soviet attack is led by two divisions in the first echelon and four divisions in the second echelon on a narrow front. It is therefore necessary to attempt to kill second echelon armour when still on Soviet-controlled territory. In addition, the Soviets have what they call operational mobile groups designed for deep penetration on D1 or D2. They are brigades with helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft support. There are 30,000 men in these operational mobile groups at present in East Germany and Czechoslovakia. The Soviets also have special assignment forces, which are used before H-hour to attack key points, or carry out assassination, political or military, disguised as tourists, and dropped from Aeroflot aircraft. With that background, what are the NATO essentials for ground warfare? I suggest that there are five. First, reinforcements must be got to continental Europe before the war starts.
Plans and successful exercises have been carried out in this respect, but, of course, it depends very much on the courage of political leaders who initiate mobilisation in a time of tension. We must remember that the vast majority of all NATO troops are not at their battle stations. It will probably take one or two days to reach them and to evacuate the civilians from western Germany.
The second essential is defence in depth, with adequate anti-tank weapon systems being supplied in much greater numbers. The Times leader today raises the question whether there will be sufficient troops to carry out the defence in depth. That is a question that we must face, but I believe that at present we probably have approximately the right balance.
Thirdly, we need new conventional weapon systems to attack the second echelon armour. The first is the MLRS, an unguided rocket, which will be followed by SMART or laser-guided weapons, such as the copperhead shell, and later by weapons of the assault breaker type, with terminally guided sub-munitions, with the objective of dealing with second echelon armour before it reaches the front line. I suggest that it is essential that we keep up to date in the development of these advanced technological but conventional weapons which will make the use of tactical nuclear weapons much less likely.
Fourthly, I suggest that there is a grave disparity between artillery anti-aircraft defence and chemical warfare potential in comparison with the Warsaw pact. Much more must be done in this field.
Lastly, there is the threat posed by Soviet armoured helicopter regiments which has not been dealt with; nor is there efficient helicopter lift in BAOR or in the 2nd Tactical Air Force.
I deal next briefly with Soviet technique by air. The first Soviet attack will come with, or prior to, the first echelon attack and will be directed against NATO's air defence systems. The aircraft then return to refuel and to rearm. In the second strike, corridors already punched in NATO's defences will be exploited. The third strike will be against nuclear weapons such as Pershing, Lance and other such nuclear weapon systems.
What, therefore are the essential requirements to be maintained by NATO? I suggest that they are to attack the advance enemy airfields between the first and second strikes so as to prevent the rearming from the second strike. At present, this will be done by Tornado aircraft armed with iron bombs. Later we will use the JP233, but even that advance weapon is not a stand-off weapon. I believe that the attrition rate of our aircraft will be enormous. What is needed is a long-range stand-off weapon, which we are promised in the White Paper for the 1990s. I believe that that is much too late. As the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Duffy) will know, practically every armament firm in the United States is developing its own weapon system, be it Patriot or Lance, into a stand-off weapon, which we do not yet have, and are not likely to have until the 1990s.
The alternative method of dealing with these airfields is by conventional ballistic missiles targeted on the airfields themselves, such as the counter air missile, or CAM. I believe that this is an important concept, because it is cheap and accurate, and it should be studied more than has been the case up to now. Unless these forward airfields

are attacked and taken out, and the second echelon enemy armour is attacked by air, or/and by advanced technology guided missiles, a Soviet breakthrough is likely.
Our anti-armour defences are improving, but our air defences in BAOR for forward troops and for the rear areas are almost non-existent. We have no air defence system such as the German Mauder, and we have too few track Rapiers.
I deal now with maritime strategy. First, I wish to refer to the short war concept. There are those who say that thė war, if it ever comes, will be over in seven to 10 days so there is little need to spend money on the Navy because it will not be used. That, of course, is a useful argument for any Chancellor, but one that proved wrong in 1914 and 1939. I raised this question at SACLANT's recent symposium in Annapolis, and the NATO Secretary-General's answer was perfectly clear. If there was to be a war, it would not be a short one.
Let me illustrate one possibility. If the Warsaw pact started thinking that NATO lacked the will to fight, it is conceivable that it might pinch off the northern part of Norway to give itself elbow room for its main base on the Kola peninsula. It would then sit back and see whether NATO reacted. Thus, I suggest, a maritime war should be initiated, as indeed it was in 1940.
In any major crisis, such as a future world war 3, the battle of the Atlantic and of the Norwegian sea would be vital. However, this time it will be not against 60 German U-boats, but 190 Soviet nuclear-propelled submarines. The Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom gap must be held, the strike fleet must be protected, patrol groups in the Atlantic will be needed to protect merchant shipping bringing reinforcements and supplies and ports will be mined and bombed. There are just not enough ships to go round. At the Annapolis symposium last week, SACLANT said publicly that he was 50 per cent. short in warships and could no longer carry out all of his tasks. He said that he would have to institute a series of priorities if the enemy permitted it.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that he thought that generals and admirals always ask for too much, but when I went on a tour of Atlantic bases with the hon. Member for Attercliffe last year we were told by every NATO commander, senior and junior, that there were not enough warships to go round — yet Britain continues to scrap or sell frigates and destroyers. One wonders whether European Ministers of Defence ever listen to those who have to do the fighting. I know that generals and admirals are apt to exaggerate, but not to that extent. The British admirals have also said that they are 50 per cent. short of shipping. That is serious. It shows that the Europeans are not doing their stuff and I do not wonder at the Americans talking about pulling troops out of Europe in order to persuade the European nations to do more about defence. The 50 old United States destroyers which were taken over in 1940 were extremely important in the anti-submarine warfare against the U-boats, but there will not be any reserves next time. We shall have to fight with what we have in the shop window.
The next five years might prove vital for several reasons. Younger men might be in control in the Kremlin, the internal situation in the Soviet Union is getting more serious, the economy is winding down and there is restlessness in the satellites. In the next five years no ships should be scrapped, but should be mothballed. We must also bear in mind the associated problem with the


merchant fleet. As others have said, if the disappearance of British merchant shipping continues, even an operation such as the Falklands will no longer be possible.
The British people have a sense of sea power which has been born into them over the centuries. They watched Sir John Nott's reforms with alarm. The Royal Navy was saved by the Falkland Islands operation, but people are not yet satisfied that the Government will not return to the policy of cutting our anti-submarine warfare forces. That might be one of the reasons why the Conservatives lost the Portsmouth, South by-election. I hope that the Government have learnt that lesson. It is far cheaper to avoid a war than to have to fight one. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor should bear that in mind. Of course there should be economies where that is possible, but defence of the realm is the first priority of any Government and it cannot be had on the cheap.
It is not good enough for the Government to say that more warships are being built now than for several years, because many of them were ordered by the previous Labour Government as an election bribe which did not come off, and others have been ordered as replacements for the Falkland Islands casualties. If the number of those ships are subtracted from the total, it will be revealed that our building programme is lamentably small. Even against that background, however, we are talking about disposing of no fewer than 12 frigates and destroyers this year and next.
The Government are rightly concentrating on Trident, which greatly improves NATO Europe's deterrent, but how many type 23s do the Government intend to order, why is the SSN programme so slow and when do the Government intend to replace Fearless and Intrepid, perhaps with more but smaller and cheaper ships which are essential to the Royal Marines? As I said, the next five years might be vital. The Soviets have expanded all of their armed forces, but their internal problems increase. It is quite possible that when the old guard have been replaced in the Kremlin, a young man spurred on by the generals might initiate a war if he thinks that he can get away with it. It is NATO's job to ensure that that does not happen, but the responsibility lies not with NATO but with the 16 Governments of NATO to provide the wherewithal. Britain's defence expenditure, at 5·4 per cent. of gross national product, sets a good example to other European Governments, whose defence spending averages about 3·5 per cent. — half the American expenditure. It is no wonder that the Americans are getting fed up with Europe. Other European Governments must follow our example. We should spend more, but at least we are setting an excellent example. I hope that, when he meets his colleagues, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will back the Americans up and make it clear that we expect other European countries to do more over common defence.
Preventing war is not cheap, but war itself is much more expensive in terms of money and in terms of blood.

Mr. Dick Douglas: We have heard several interesting speeches and an entertaining one from the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley). He referred to the Secretary of State's room in the Ministry of Defence and said that on one wall there is a portrait of Lloyd George and on another—I hope that I am not breaching the rules of secrecy —there is a great

organisational chart which is much beloved by the Secretary of State, who considers himself something of a professional consultant on many matters.
One of the most depressing features of discussing defence is examining the relationship between defence and foreign policy. The hon. Member for Meirionnydd and Nant Conwy (Mr. Thomas) said that we are in the middle of a nuclear arms race. We have been in the middle of a nuclear arms race since 1945. One of the most depressing features of that race is the inability of the great powers to agree even on matters that would appear simple, such as measurement, and whether we should discuss warheads or launchers. Inability to agree on such relatively simple concepts has resulted, albeit inadvertently, in the breakdown of many negotiations, including the intermediate nuclear forces talks at Geneva.
We address the arms race by turning to the Trident system. There is no point in the Ministry of Defence suggesting that it is merely a replacement for Polaris. We have heard the view of the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) and the considerable view of the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Speed), who said that, at this juncture, he reluctantly goes against the Trident system. Trident is a costly device. It overloads our programme and, in later years, will take a substantial proportion of the procurement budget. Moreover, it will crowd out some conventional, especially naval, weaponry. We are still not sure of its cost as we have not received a clear answer from the Secretary of State. Nor are we sure how much will be procured in the United Kingdom. There is a hopeful view that we shall keep the American portion of that expenditure below 45 per cent., but that is a mere hope and there is no sign that the proportion of our defence expenditure that goes to the United States will be reduced.
I have already mentioned the Secretary of State's view that he is a management consultant. That is shown by the way in which he strives towards competition in a number of spheres. I and my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) have approached the MOD about a number of issues, but especially about the proposals emanating from one of the Secretary of State's advisers, Mr. Peter Levene. There is nothing in the main body of the report dealing with the privatisation of the dockyards. Paragraph 239 refers to competition, and that could be a precursor to assessing certain aspects of competition within the dockyards.
No one fears reasonable comparison on efficiency and the desire to get value for money. However, the personnel in the dockyards fear privatisation through the back door, where the assets of the dockyards are leased to private concerns. The MOD has had no consultations with those working in the dockyards. I want the Minister to assure the House, and through us those working in the dockyards, that there will be full consultation before implementation of the proposals emanating from Mr. Levene. If the Government want to lease those assets, there must be an opportunity for a full debate in the House. We are considering not only the efficiency of the dockyards, but the efficiency and morale of Britain's naval fleet as a whole.
I know that the Minister may say that the allocation of time is a matter for the Leader of the House, but persuasive influences can be brought to bear. The announcement to lease assets must not be made in a written answer — there must be an opportunity for a full and frank debate.
I know that some unions, especially the Civil Service Union, have already made representations to the Minister about their fears. Those fears are valid in view of the Mallabar report which examined leasing and the Speed report of 1981 which examined and rejected that. We must have certain assurances. What will be the position of the nuclear facilities in Rosyth and elsewhere? Will they be leased to private concerns? Are the Government capable of setting aside those facilities and leasing only conventional facilities? Those serious matters have not been fully ventilated. The Government have not fully examined the issue.
The Secretary of State wants to be as good, or as bad, a privatiser as the former Secretary of State for Energy, now the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That might be related to political ambition. Ambition resides in all politicians, but ambition that might be used to the detriment of the nation's defence is something of which we should be chary.
I intervened earlier to question the Secretary of State about the Merchant Navy. It is simply not good enough for him to say that he will examine the Select Committee report and comment on its strictures. It is just two years after the Falkland crisis, but there is no mention of the Merchant Navy in the White Paper. I declare my interest in the shipbuilding industry. Those who are concerned with maintaining the fabric of the merchant fleet, both in ships and personnel, recognise that there has been a rapid decline in the British flag fleet; the Select Committee referred to that in paragraph 52. It is not good enough for the Secretary of State to recognise the strategic importance of merchant shipping, while disregarding it when presenting the annual White Paper. That does not acknowledge the vital contribution that the merchant fleet has made and can make to defence.
If the right hon. Gentleman says that there will be further consultation with individuals in the service, he must appreciate that we are concerned not only with consultation but with obtaining detailed plans and assessment of the contribution that merchant shipping can make to the defence of Britain. Before Operation Corporate, the MOD had a list of ships. However, that is not sufficient — detailed knowledge is required of drawings and designs. We cannot get that unless the ships are British-manned under the British flag. We shall do ourselves a great disservice if we do not recognise that we allow the British merchant fleet to decline at our peril.
What about the threat that Europe faces from the Soviet Union? If we adopt the confidence-building methods emanating from Helsinki and Stockholm, NATO must not resort to an escalation of conventional war into nuclear war. We should seek access to information about the intentions of the other parties. The basic ingredient is how to remove fear. That is what the people of Europe and the world desire. I am interested in the American proposals for and the Soviet Union interest—albeit low key—in confidence-building methods. I hope that the arms control unit being established by the MOD will be useful in determining how both sides can gain notification of the intentions of the other side about troop movements and exercises.
I appreciate that this may be a Foreign Office matter, but I hope that the Minister can explain the Government's view on how we can give the Soviet Union and the Warsaw

pact countries information about our troop movements, and how we propose to obtain relevant information from them. In my view, a nuclear war would not occur instantaneously. There would be a build-up. That is why, if we could get information about the movement of troops and navies which allayed the fears of individuals and nations, we might be able to reduce the temperature throughout Europe and the world.
I urge the Minister to take cognisance of the situation in my constituency and similar areas. He has a responsibility to provide us with detailed information about the intentions, for example, of an important employer in Fife. I hope that he will be able to give that information when he replies to the debate.

Dr. Alan Glyn: I agree with what the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas) said about detection, because that is one of the most vital elements of warfare. I also agree with him about the importance of our merchant navy.
The Secretary of State set out well how dangerous the situation is, at the same time placing importance on the need for disarmament. It is interesting to note that paragraphs 106 to 116 are devoted to disarmament. Nobody, therefore, can say that we are interested only in armament. The reason for our interest in armament is defensive, whereas our enemies have very different ideas. Ten paragraphs devoted to the subject of disarmament represents a considerable concentration on that aspect.
When I first became a Member of this House there was a great deal of agreement between the two sides on the subject of disarmament. Issue was taken over certain minor matters—that was inevitable, just as today there are minor differences between chiefs of staff and Ministers —but in principle the House had a united approach on the subject. It is sad that that has completely disappeared.
Paragraph 102 of the defence Estimates contains a good paraphrase of the build-up of Soviet forces, and paragraph 103 confirms that not only are the Warsaw pact forces vastly superior but that there is an alarming feeling that the Soviet Union
is testing a new generation of ICBMs, the SS-X-24 and SS-X-25, and has under developmnt long range cruise missiles which can be launched from air, ground and sea platforms.
Not much is said about chemical warfare. I have always regarded that as one of the most dangerous factors in modern warfare, one for which we are the least well provided. Our policy, right or wrong, was to destroy what stocks we had and to abandon any further development. Unlike us, the Soviets are well equipped with chemicals.
At sea there has been an alarming increase among the Warsaw pact countries, not only in the number of nuclear submarines but surface ships. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Speed) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Sir H. Atkins) rightly said, it is vital that we pay more attention to the merchant fleet. It is easy for iron curtain countries to subsidise their shipping, as they do, whereas for us it is less easy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford said, provision should be made to enable subsidy to be given for the basic facilities to make the conversion of ships for war more easy. That view has been echoed by the Chairman of the Select Committee, and one should not lightly ignore his views.
There has been a further increase in the build-up of SS20s, with their gradual replacement by SS21s, 22s, and 23s. Looking at the general picture, one can only feel that there is no alternative but for us to continue with the Trident programme. I appreciate that the Secretary of State has placed great emphasis on increasing the Territorial Army. Not only is that our first line of defence; it is the cheapest form of reinforcement and has many social advantages.
If, on the other hand, it is true that the United States is talking about withdrawing 100,000 men from Europe, our efforts will be only a small drop in the ocean. It has been suggested that the possibility — perhaps it is a probability—of the Americans making a reduction of that size arises because NATO is not spending enough. It may be an American method of making the NATO nations spend more on defence, but that is speculation. We can only hope that such a withdrawal does not occur because, with no sign of disarmament on the horizon, it would be extremely dangerous.
An aspect which has not been discussed in the House for a long time is that of the factors which might influence the expediting or retarding of war. In my view, the main factor is the relationship between China and Russia, and little is known about that today. That relationship has always been difficult. For example, during the Long March, the Chinese backed one side and then the other. In 1921 the Russians gave the Mongolians independence. Today, the Russians openly maintain an army of five divisions in Mongolia. The Mongolians are completely and utterly reliant on Russia and have no desire to look to China.
Poised on the frontier between China and Russia are 30 Soviet divisions. Originally, they were pulled out of Europe, but I have reason to believe that those divisions have now been replaced from other sources. If, therefore, China were to change its policy, anything could happen, and as we know from history — for example, the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact—no country wants to fight on two fronts.
At present, we do not know China's intentions, although one can postulate three possibilities. The first is that nothing will happen, that negotiations between Russia and China will come to nothing and that the present relationship will remain the same. The second — this alternative is far more dangerous — is that some agreement will be reached. It would, of course, be a territorial agreement, because since the 17th century there has been dispute about what territory belongs to China and what belongs to Russia. An agreement could release all those divisions for concentration in Europe, and that would make war more likely. The third possibility is much more dangerous. It is that, if they were to form an alliance, as distinct from an agreement, and work together, that would greatly increase the possibility of war.
The United States and ourselves are making various overtures to China. Indeed, China is becoming more open to the world. It is possible, therefore, that Chinese attitudes may change and that we shall be able to deflect them from Soviet influence. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) said, there could be a change in the composition of Russia's leadership. This could also be because the proportion of true Russians is going down while the proportion of non-Russian races — Georgians, Cossacks and others — is

increasing. Those are all factors which we cannot take into account. All we know for sure is that so far there has been no agreement between China and Russia.
I would go so far as to say that we are in a more frightening position than we have been for many years in that we do not know what Russia intends to do. The Soviet Union is extremely well equipped, and every day that passes its army and navy becomes more powerful. If only we knew how the relationship between Russia and China would develop, we should be able more accurately to forecast the future. In the meantime, we must continue with our defence programme, possibly spend more on conventional defence and certainly rely on the Trident programme. Let us hope that we shall not be attacked by the Soviet Union.

Mr. Paddy Ashdown: I share the concern of the hon. Member for Windsor and Maidenhead (Dr. Glyn) over the level of defence expenditure. However, there are one or two areas within the defence White Paper to which we can give a conditional welcome. The first such area is the withdrawal of the Government's announcement to reduce the number of front-line escort squadrons to 42. The need to keep the number at 50 is now recognised. That is a matter on which I spoke at some length in the previous defence debate. I welcome the Government's decision unreservedly. I hope that it signifies a reversal of the idiotic and dangerous proposal to cut the Royal Navy, which has been so much a feature of previous White Papers.
It must be borne in mind that the Royal Navy still carries about 70 per cent. of the task in the eastern Atlantic, at a cost of about 10 per cent. of the budget, while we carry 10 per cent. of the land-air burden in Europe, at a cost of about 40 per cent. of the budget. It is clear that there is an imbalance. We may recognise and welcome the new direction which the Secretary of State seems to be taking, but we must hope that he recognises that the task is far from finished. In the past four years the directed task of the Royal Navy has increased fourfold, but the number of Royal Navy escort vessels has decreased since 1980 from 65 to 50. The commitment has increased by 400 per cent., but resources have declined by 17 per cent.
I share the concern that has been expressed about the mannng of eight extra ships. Where will the crews come from and how will they be trained? It must be a matter of considerable shame for the Government, as the hon. Member for Beverley (Sir P. Wall) has said, that the Supreme Allied Commander of the North Atlantic Fleet has had cause to remark that the number of ships is insufficient to meet our NATO tasks. The Secretary of State is travelling much more in the right direction—a direction which we have urged on him for some time—but I hope that he will accept that there is a considerable distance to go.
There is no reference to the Merchant Navy in the White Paper, unlike the White Paper of 1981, but the state of the merchant fleet has been expressed pungently and powerfully on both sides of the Houe. The size of the fleet has been halved in the past seven years. There is a desperate need for the Government to start taking some action along those lines before it is too late.
A welcome must be given to the Government's proposals for air defence and the improvements that have


been introduced, which are announced in the White Paper. One might say that they are not before time. Senior members of the Royal Air Force have said that our air defence now is worse that it was in 1939. We rely on no more than 70 aircraft, including 30-year-old Lightnings, 20 year-old Phantom F4s and Shackleton 2s—not 3s—for our airborne early warning. The Shackletons have a radar system which was brought into service in 1961 and which was used in the old Gannets, which were withdrawn from service. We welcome very much the announcement that the Nimrod will come into operation this year. I hope that the rumours that I have heard about delays both to that programme and to the air defence Tornado are untrue. If the Minister can give an assurance that those programmes will come on stream on time, it will be reassuring.
It is against the need to continue to strengthen our conventional forces that we must view the Trident decision. Before dealing with that issue I shall take up the remarks of the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Thomas) on deterrence. I regret that the Secretary of State would not allow me to intervene in his speech on this issue. I hope that others take the view that deterrence is the capacity to be able to deter our enemy by making it clear that the price which he would incur would be above that which he would wish to pay. In nuclear terms, that would be a price which would ensure his destruction. We have in our hands the capacity to destroy one another 50 times over, not merely once, and it is true that we could diminish our deterrence by 50 per cent. Indeed, I would go further than that. If we were to be incinerated a moment from now in the Chamber, the nature of the delivery system—for example, short range, medium range or long range—would be irrelevant to us. That would be a matter of no consequence.
I was delighted to hear the Secretary of State agree that it is overall deterrence that matters. He said that it is the overall capacity to deter that matters. I was delighted to hear that admission, for many of us have been wondering and worrying whether he was building up a nuclear war fighting capacity. It seems that he has dismissed that concept in the strongest possible terms, and I was reassured by his remarks.
I find it astonishing that there is a section in the White Paper which runs contrary to what the right hon. Gentleman said. He said that it is overall deterrence that matters, yet paragraph 107 the White Paper tells us that NATO must maintain
the ability to deter aggression at every possible level".
Either we deal in overall terms or we want to match
aggression at every possible level".
The concept of having a deterrence that matches "at every possible level" is utterly illogical. There seems to be a deep contradiction between what the right hon. Gentleman said, welcome though that was, and what is stated in the White Paper.
The White Paper tells us:
The independent British strategic force is, and will continue to be, of the minimum size necessary to provide a credible and effective deterrent. We have no intention of increasing the capability of the force beyond that minimum.
That deterrent stands at 126 warheads. If that is all right now, why do we have to increase it to an overall potential capacity of about 960 warheads? The Government say that they do not want to use the full capacity of the system. If that is so, why should they choose to build so vastly in

excess of our needs? Perhaps there will be 384 warheads —that is the figure that is being used—but that will still be a capacity that is 300 per cent. above what we now accept as a credible deterrent. I suggest that the proposed capacity contains an element of gobbledygook. The plans for Trident do not live up to the words in the White Paper.
I agree with those who argue that the expenditure on Trident will create a massive imbalance in our total defence expenditure. I shall not go into the details of that argument, because they have already been well covered by my right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen), in what was really the speech of the Leader of the Opposition in this debate. My right hon. Friend talked about increased spending on Trident and the point at which capital spending is arriving, which is the point at which we shall have to meet extra expenditure on conventional defence. The White Paper makes it clear that that will happen at a time when Government spending will stop increasing and possibly decrease under this Government, but that is the point when maximum expenditure on Trident will be reached.
I agree with Lord Chalfont, who said that this would
emasculate continued improvement in other areas of our contribution to NATO.
I agree also with Lord Carver, who said that this is a weapon we cannot afford. I agree with the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Speed), who said in a telling speech that he regretfully came to the conclusion that neither the United Kingdom nor the Royal Navy can afford Trident.
Expenditure on Trident will create a vast imbalance in disarmament negotiations. We are saying that we shall not include our 120 warheads in the disarmament negotiations, but that is an unsustainable position in the long term. It must be unsustainable to maintain that position when we can secure a capacity to hit 960 Russian cities instead of 120. To refuse to put our 120 warheads on the negotiating table, especially when the plan to increase our capacity to 960 could be implemented, is to make a mockery of any idea that we are pursuing a policy of disarmament. I asked the Prime Minister whether she would consider including our 120 warheads within the negotiations and, of course, she did not provide an answer.
For what purpose are we to create such a massive imbalance in our defence expenditure in the crucial area of adequate conventional defences and to make a mockery of disarmament negotiations? Is that to be done for some spurious independence? Let us analyse this so-called independence. Shall we have the independence to launch these systems ourselves? I doubt whether we shall. What political independence shall we have? We all know that the Americans have said that any nuclear missile that is launched from Russia and which lands on any piece of NATO territory will be considered to be an attack on the American heartland. Reciprocally, the Soviet Union has said that any missile that is launched from any NATO territory and lands in Russia will be regarded as an attack from the heartland of America.
There will be massive political pressure that will stop us launching Trident in any sense independently. However, let us assume that we can overcome that pressure. The missile comes from America and we are assuming that we have bought enough of them to be able to use our capacity independently. The missiles are maintained in the United States, so let us assume that we have enough in operation to be able to use them independently, even though there will be political pressure


on us to prevent us launching them. When do we fire the missiles? Do we wait until we can see the incoming Russian missiles? How will we be able to see those missiles? They will be shown on the ballistic missile early warning system, which is run by the Americans.
Let us then assume that we do not want them and that we wait until Birmingham goes bang before we launch our Trident missiles. We have another problem now: how do we get the Trident missile to its target? I am informed that to be able to give the Trident missile its accuracy, the submarine which launches it has to have its position fixed by the NAVSAT satellite, once again in American control.
The so-called independence that Trident gives us is spurious and it will not exist, but it does several very damaging things. First, it weakens the will of NATO, because it is a major commitment of our defence resources to an area which is not committed to NATO. There is the use of a certain amount of our defence resources which could be used in NATO and which are being used, as it were, outside. If we really believe in NATO, is it not incumbent upon us, as good partners, to use that vital resource in an area where NATO is weakest, and not in an area such as nuclear missiles where it already has a superfluity?
Some say that we need nuclear weapons because of the weakness of our conventional force strength. I would have said that the argument can be put the other way round and that our conventional force strengths are very weak because we are spending so much on nuclear weapons.
With regard to the balance of forces between NATO and the Warsaw pact, we all agree, and the Secretary of State has said, that we would like to see a move towards stronger conventional forces. General Rogers, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, has said:
What we are trying to do in Allied Command-Europe is to provide for a conventional capacity by 1990 that has a reasonable prospect of frustrating conventional attack by the other side.
The Secretary of State has said that we have a very long distance to go. I think he used the expression that in order to reach an appropriate level we would have to spend a great deal of money. The conventional wisdom is that, in order to be successful in attack, one needs to have a preponderance over the defender of about 2·5:1. As the White Paper admits, in very few areas, if in any at all, does the Warsaw pact have that kind of preponderance. In tanks it is 2·3:1, in artillery it is 2·7:1, and in aircraft 2·1:1. A recent United States Defence Department study, using armoured division equivalents, covered the whole of the force spectrum, rationalised it and came to the conclusion that the Soviet Union had a preponderance of only 1·2:1.
John Mearsheimer of Harvard university centre for international relations has written:
NATO is in relatively good shape at the conventional level. The conventional wisdom which claims otherwise … is a distortion of reality.
I do not accept that we are yet at an appropriate level to be able to operate effectively to raise the nuclear threshold and to be able to deter Warsaw pact agression on the conventional basis in central Europe, but we are not as far from that as many believe. We have a great opportunity, in the cancelling of Trident and in the harmonisation of procurement procedures, to move in that direction.
It is a fact that NATO spends more on defence than the Warsaw pact, but it gets less for its money, and I am delighted to see moves towards improving procurement. Common procurement and the cancellation of Trident could bring us close to the point of achieving the enormous

prize of raising the nuclear threshold in central Europe —perhaps even prising the two super powers apart with a battlefield nuclear-free zone, reducing tensions and increasing conventional strengths.
I must emphasise an important point which differentiates us from the Labour party. If the cost of achieving the aims that I have mentioned — raising the nuclear threshold, with perhaps the establishment of a European battlefield nuclear-free zone — is to increase defence expenditure, that is a cost that is worth paying to achieve that prize. It is one which I would be happy to recommend to the electorate. As I said earlier, I do not think that it may be necessary, but if it is, we should do it.
We need to cancel the prestige weapons. We need stronger conventional forces. We need common procurement and the political will to pursue it. We need a new initiative in the disarmament talks. Those are the opportunities which now stand before us, and which the defence White Paper could begin to grasp. Unfortunately, it does not do so. It is a defence White Paper in which the sums do not add up, and in which the opportunity and potential to achieve stronger defence for Europe, but at the same time produce an initiative in the arms race, are not taken. In that sense it is a defence White Paper which will, I am sure, in time to come, be seen to be leading in the wrong direction, and to be very short measure in comparison with the potentials now offered to us.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Paul Dean): The House will wish to know that the winding-up speeches are expected to begin at about 9.15 pm. That means that we have only about 40 minutes left for Back-Bench contributions.

Mr. Churchill: I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on his White Paper, and especially on his determination to get the maximum defence value out of available resources, exemplified by his decision to put 4,000 troops in the front line, to retain eight frigates—which were previously intended to be mothballed—in the active fleet, and to deploy 15 per cent. more aircraft with the Royal Air Force in the years ahead.
I welcome the political will that has been demonstrated by the Government in the past year in securing the successful deployment of cruise missiles in the face of the unremitting propaganda campaign orchestrated by the Soviet Union. I welcome also the Government's commitment to proceed with Trident, which remains unquestionably the most cost-effective potential replacement for Polaris. Although, in terms of modern weapon systems, it is undoubtedly the most powerful deterrent to war available to us, it is by no means the most expensive of the defence programmes of the present generation.
The key factor in determining the resources needed for defence must be an accurate appreciation of the level of threat. At annex A to volume 1 of the White Paper there is a table showing the balance of forces, to which the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) has just referred. He fell into the pit of accepting that misleading table as gospel truth. I say that it is misleading because it refers to the balance of forces between NATO and the Warsaw Pact on the central front, but it specifically excludes the three westernmost military districts of the Soviet Union.
It should be borne in mind that reinforcements for NATO, particularly in tanks and troops, would have to


come across the Atlantic and could take a considerable time, whereas reinforcement from the western military districts of the Soviet Union could be done on the basis of four armoured divisions being brought forward with transporters simultaneously. I hope that omission will be rectified in future White Papers.
Confronting the NATO alliance west of the Urals is a force of no fewer than 30,000 Soviet tanks, compared with the figure of 18,000 given in the table. Therefore, a fairer balance in tanks would be 4 to 1 against us in Europe.

Mr. Ashdown: We are, of course, dealing with somewhat abstruse matters. May I commend to the hon. Gentleman the recent British Atlantic Committee report dealing with precisely these matters? It comes to the conclusion that a Soviet attack which would be able to mobilise those reserves in any time at all would be easily discernible before it happened and would give an equivalent time in which to build up reserve capacity in Western Europe. Indeed, the ultimate conclusion of the report is very much in line with that of the United States Defence Department, that there is not such a disparity as the hon. Gentleman mentions.

Mr. Churchill: That, of course, runs directly counter to the statements made in recent years by successive Supreme Allied Commanders Europe, that the Soviets have been working to acquire a standing start capability for a conventional attack against Western Europe, which would not require such mobilisation as the hon. Gentleman referred to.
Another key parameter in assessing the level of threat has to be the dynamic in arms production on both sides, yet nowhere in the White Paper is there to be found a table showing the relative rates of build of key military weapons systems of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Each year, the Soviet Union has been producing more than 150 medium or long-range nuclear missiles, more than 1,000 supersonic swing-wing jet aircraft and 3,000 to 4,000 tanks. Those are much in excess of anything produced by the West.
I should like to address two areas of our defences that give grave cause for concern — first, the announced intention to abandon the 3 per cent. increased commitment and, secondly, the size of our reserve force.
The Secretary of State has rightly pointed to the fact that, although there has been conflict across the globe in the past 40 years, there has been no conflict involving Western Europe and, above all, there has been no world war. A major factor in that achievement has been the heavy preponderance of Western, and especially United States, nuclear power. I must ask my right hon. Friend whether this is the moment, just when that preponderance has been lost, for Britain to slacken her efforts in defence.
The challenge from the Soviet Union shows no sign of abating, when measured either by its cynical abandonment of the disarmament talks in Geneva, by its cold-blooded destruction of KAL 007, by the repression in Poland, or by its bloody and even genocidal war against the Afghan people, which is in its fifth year.
The decision to abandon the 3 per cent. commitment from 1986 has not been taken in response to a reduction of that threat, let alone progress in disarmament negotiations. Could it be that that decision was made above all in response to the Treasury, rather than to any

perception of threat by another quarter? We are confronted by several disturbing trends that threaten to undermine peace and security in the longer term. The first, to which I have referred, is the threat from the Soviet Union. The second is the intensifying pace of development in high technology in defence, which cannot be ignored.
When President Reagan made his much-publicised "star wars" speech just a few months ago, many smiled with derision. They thought that it was nonsense from Hollywood. I wonder whether they thought the same when they read in their newspapers last week that the United States had successfully knocked down one of its own intercontinental ballistic missiles with another one.
I welcome American research in defence technology and their determination never to allow the West to lag behind the Soviet Union in that key area, as we had been doing in the late 1970s and at the beginning of the 1980s. However, I hope that the deployment of such systems can be forestalled by a firm East-West agreement between the super powers.
A third factor with which we are confronted today is the ever-escalating cost of new generations of military equipment, which is a direct result of its greater sophistication. Such development is not unique to defence. It is seen, for example, in hospitals that have laser equipment, brain scanning devices and other equipment. All that adds enormously to the cost of providing high technology equipment.
The development of military equipment is estimated to be at a minimum of 5 per cent. above the annual rate of inflation. The Government should be congratulated on coming closer than any other European member of NATO to achieving the 3 per cent. target increase, but they must have no illusion that, once a clear real-term increase is abandoned, the defence procurement programme that the Secretary of State has outlined and to which the Government are committed, cannot be fulfilled without painful and damaging defence reviews in the years ahead. They will lead to cutbacks, to abandoned programmes or to further reductions in forces below an acceptable level.
Not only are we providing insufficient financial resources for defence in the years after 1986, but for inadequate resources of manpower. In a crisis this nation can mobilise fewer than 200,000 reserve forces, which would augment our armed forces to barely 550,000. In other words, 98 per cent. of the nation would be without weapons or uniforms, and would have no war role. Can that be prudent or wise?
That situation is born of a conviction within the Ministry of Defence that, if there were another war, it would be brief. There would be no requirement for a large pool of trained reserve manpower. Can we be sure that that supposition is correct? If it is wrong, who will guard our coastline, protect the electricity grid, the water supplies, or the railway network in the face of the Soviet special forces and airborne forces that would undoubtedly seek to penetrate this country and cause massive disruption? There is no provision at present to deal with those tasks.
The Secretary of State has announced his intention to increase the Territorials in the years ahead by 12,000 and the Home Service Force by 5,000. I warmly welcome that, but it is on a scale wholly inadequate to the level of threat. The Secretary of State admitted in his opening remarks that there is no more cost-effective form of home defence than voluntary manpower. My right hon. Friend should have as his aim not a 5,000-strong home defence corps


but, as a minimum, a defence force 250,000 strong. We would still have smaller armed forces than Switzerland, Sweden or even tiny Finland.
We have a unique opportunity to arm such a force for free with the impending replacement of self-loading rifles by newer equipment. I trust that the Government will heed the recommendation of the Select Committee on Defence that the self-loading rifles should not be scrapped or sold abroad at knockdown prices, but retained against future reserve force requirements.
The time has come when we in Britain should have, in addition to our existing forces, a citizen army that could be mobilised for home defence as required. Nothing would do more to signal to the Soviet leadership the resolve of the British nation to defend our homeland, come what may. Such a demonstration of resolve can only reinforce deterrence and the sinews of peace.

Mr. Gavin Strang: This debate may turn out to be an historic milestone in the development of a British defence policy that renounces the use or threatened use of nuclear weapons. I say so not because of anything that the Secretary of State said in opening the debate—far from it—but because for the first time, the Labour Opposition have tabled an amendment, to be voted on tomorrow night, which calls for the removal of all nuclear bases from British territory.
In the course of the past year, some important new evidence has come to light about the likely climatic effects of nuclear war, not of an all-out nuclear war but of even a relatively small nuclear war—if such a phrase is not a contradiction in terms. I refer to the work of Soviet, and particularly American, scientists, who have found that even a relatively limited nuclear exchange could lead to a "nuclear winter" and, as a result, the future of human life on this planet could be at risk. It would probably have little chance of survival.
As time is short, I shall simply quote from a very important article which appeared in last winter's edition of the Foreign Affairs journal. Professor Carl Sagan said:
In summary, cold, dark, radioactivity, pyrotoxins, and ultraviolet light following a nuclear war — including some scenarios involving only a small fraction of the world strategic arsenals—would imperil every survivor on the planet. There is a real danger of the extinction of humanity. A threshold exists at which the climatic catastrophe could be triggered, very roughly around 500–2,000 strategic warheads. A major first strike may be an act of national suicide, even if no retaliation occurs.
It is only two or three years since we had arguments in the House on the report of the British Medical Association on the effect of a nuclear attack on this country. Among other things, it brought out just how pathetic it was to pretend that out medical services could in any way cope with the immediate consequences of such an attack. Research on the effects of nuclear weapons shows that there would be no way in which one could cope with the immediate effects of an attack — that is, during the following days or weeks—and that the survival of the human species would be at risk. Indeed, it is highly unlikely that life would be worth living on these islands if there was anything approaching a significant exchange of nuclear weapons between the United Kingdom or the United States of America, and the Soviet Union, which involved British territory.
Given that, one might have expected some progress on the negotiations that have been taking place between the

two nuclear super-powers of the Soviet Union and the United States, but the opposite is true. This debate is being held at a time when the limited talks—which is what they were—on intermediate nuclear forces have broken down. Neither START nor the INF talks are now taking place on the need to control or reduce the nuclear arsenals of East and West. The West must bear the major share of responsibility for the breakdown in the INF talks and for the situation in which we find ourselves.
The difference between those of us who support the Opposition's amendment and those who oppose it is that we believe that the threat of nuclear war is not only very serious, but is increasing. Of course we want to defend this country, and if time allows I shall tell the House how we should do so. But the real division between us is that we believe that we cannot go on holding talks and so on year in year out, when the underlying reality is that there is a dangerous escalation in the nuclear arms race.
As hon. Members on both sides of the House may agree, the threat of nuclear war is increasing for a whole host of reasons. There is a growing threat of proliferation as new countries develop their own nuclear weapons. According to the research to which I have referred, the whole planet could be threatened if there was a nuclear war, even if it did not involve the super-powers. Furthermore, there is a growing threat of a nuclear war taking place by accident. That must be obvious to anyone who has read the literature and seen accounts of some of the false alarms in recent years. Above all, the policy of deterrence or of mutually assured destruction is being undermined by counter-force weapons.
Against that background, many people believe that the nation can no longer continue to tag along, sometimes —although not usually—taking part in talks. We need bolder unilateral initiatives. Just as the process of nuclear escalation takes place not be agreement but by national initiatives, so I believe that the time is now ripe for us to make real progress towards nuclear disarmament, and we must do so by taking real unilateral initiatives.

Mr. Robert Atkins: rose——

Mr. Strang: I shall not give way, as there is not enough time.
Of course, we do not believe that the Soviet Union would automatically follow up such an initiative, or that we would in that way somehow opt out of all danger. But by taking that decision we can give a real lead to the campaign to resist proliferation and to get nuclear weapons out of part of Europe, and ours can become a real voice for sanity in the world.
The defence White Paper refers to unilateral disarmament and to one-sided disarmament, as if we still had to conduct the argument at that sort of level. However, the vast majority of countries do not have nuclear weapons, and no one suggests that they do not try to defend themselves or that they do not have defence policies. Of course we want a defence policy. I find myself in some agreement with some of the things that the hon. Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) said in this respect. Of course we should be concerned about defending these islands. The Labour party's policy is to make an effective contribution to NATO, but a non-nuclear contribution. As we spell out in our amendment, we want to change the NATO strategy.
Some Conservative Members want us to jump into a commitment to increase the overall level of defence


expenditure, but the amount that we spend on defence must relate to our commitments. We still carry on as if we were a world power. Paragraph 132 of the defence Estimates gives the game away in a revealing phrase:
Recognising that we can no longer afford to make military activity on a global scale a main priority of our defence effort".
We want a radical break with our imperial past. We should be concerned with defending these islands, making a contribution to the Western Alliance and only contributing to UN peacekeeping forces outside the NATO area. That means a radical change in foreign policy.

Mr. Nicholas Baker: What about the Falklands?

Mr. Strang: There must be an end to fortress Falklands. The Falklands illustrates the case for negotiating our way out of all the world commitments that we can no longer justify or afford. Although I am opposed to the Government's policy, the real criticism to be made is not of this Government's policy but of that of previous Governments. In the 1960s, Argentina had a democratic regime. A response should have been made to the UN resolutions, and the best deal possible should have been negotiated for the Falklanders. They should have been told to accept that there was no longer any commitment to defend them, and that they could receive compensation or return to the United Kingdom. The same approach should be adopted to other British commitments around the world. It is nonsense to spend so much money on that aspect of our defence.
Conservative Members say that the Labour party does not want a defence policy, but that is not true. We want a real and effective defence policy but we also want a Government who will take an initiative towards halting the drift towards nuclear annihilation.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Strang) will not expect me to agree with what he said about unilateral initiatives. If I had to sum up my views in one sentence I would quote the words of Dean Inge, who said that it was no use for sheep to pass resolutions about vegetarianism when wolves are about who like mutton.
I shall address myself to two interrelated matters in which the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East has an interest. I have an interest as an Army reservist and I wish to speak about Ferranti and the European fighter aircraft. Last year Ferranti's orders from the Ministry of Defence involved more than £100 million. In many respects its technology is the most advanced in the world. It has been valuable to Ferranti to find a way forward with the Sea Harrier radar and the Blue Kestrel programmes and I thank the Minister. That has not only ensured continuity of employment, but reflected confidence in the work by the company in earlier years. In the electro-optical sphere Ferranti is demonstrating its own good faith by putting up substantial sums. I hope that early decisions will be made on aircraft refits and updates which may include new equipment in time.
Ferranti is already fitting navigation systems into the Tornado, Jaguar, Sea Harrier and Nimrod. It is pleased to have received the order for the Harrier GR5 map display. We look forward to further moves by the Minister on

British avionics in that aircraft. We hope that the Minister will take the Ferranti inertial navigation system for the GR5 since that equipment is compatible with carrier operations in future out-of-area operations because of the special featuring on-deck alignment equipment.
The order is of great importance to increasing the prospect of the Ferranti inertial navigation system being taken for the European fighter aircraft. I thank the Minister for seeing an all-party delegation on that matter. We hope for a successful outcome before long.
The Secretary of State played a key role in advancing Britain in the Ariane project. He recently made a decision to use the United States space shuttle to launch the forthcoming United Kingdom communication satellites rather than the European launcher, Ariane, in which the United Kingdom has a share. Ferranti provides the launch guidance for that.
If the Ministry of Defence had opted for launching satellites through Ariane it would have required further European launchers with Ferranti launch guidance systems and consequently more orders. I hope that, at least, the Government will retain a continued commitment to the Ariane programme in which Ferranti plays such a vital part.
Looking further ahead, I shall deal with a larger subject —that of Ferranti having a worthwhile British share in avionics equipment in the European fighter aircraft. I refer not only to inertial navigation equipment, but to the airborne radar, the cockpit display equipment, and the electro-optic and laser equipment. It is essential for the project to be launched quickly so that the fighter has a large export market before orders are made for other aircraft. British Aerospace wants equality of partnership between the countries concerned — Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain—or at least it wants a genuine partnership which it considers to be of vital importance. It follows that we should finish up with an aircraft with the technology and performance to match any potential threat in central Europe. That aircraft should have a performance and a price that makes it competitive in the export market. The aircraft must be available within the right time scale since about 30,000 jobs in Britain hang in the balance. After all, the Tornado production line, in which Ferranti and many others are involved, will run out at the end of the 1980s.

Mr. Robert Atkins: Does the House realise that the last Tornado for the Royal Air Force and other air forces has already left the drawing board?

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: That is right. A few export orders may be forthcoming, which could last until the early 1990s, but by the mid-1990s there will be no further prospects of the Tornado being pursued further. It is therefore hoped that the European fighter aircraft, a single-seater twin-engined fighter will replace the Phantoms in the German air force, the Phantoms and Jaguars in the Royal Air Force, the Starfighters in the Italian air force, the Jaguars in France and that Spain will also build up its air force. About 800 aircraft will be required. That figure has provisionally been agreed by the chiefs of the air staffs of the five countries—Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
I stress a matter of key importance in relation to Britain's export potential and to the thousands of jobs involved. The longer we wait for the European fighter


aircraft, the more exports are likely to be conceded to the American and French aviation industries. I refer to United States aircraft—the F15, F16 and F18, and particularly to the French Mirage 2000. Such aircraft will be available for the aircraft market in competition.
We should never forget that Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain have a common interest, but that the fifth country — France — has a conflict of interests. France will not only be involved with the European fighter aircraft, but will wish to sell the Mirage 2000. France does not have the same sense of urgency to send the European fighter aircraft on its way because both aircraft will compete for the same market.
On the other hand, Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain have a sense of urgency. I hope that the Minister will impress upon his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State the need to agree in his discussions with the French Defence Minister, Mr. Hernu, that the five European countries involved should give priority to the European fighter aircraft.
The matter is of critical importance, not only for my constituents in Ferranti and for the working men in British Aerospace, but for the five European countries involved. It is the last chance for the European aviation industries to get their act together and produce a military combat aircraft which will satisfy European defence needs. The European fighter aircraft will be the only military aircraft to be produced by Britain for the remainder of the century.

Dr. John Marek: It is clear that many hon. Members wish to speak and that there is not sufficient time. I shall pick up some points made by the Secretary of State when he opened the debate. I may not quote him word perfect, but I have the sense of what he said.
He said that NATO has kept the peace for 35 years. It is arrogant to state that NATO alone kept the peace. Some hon. Members said that NATO forces were supreme at times and that in the 1970s or early 1980s the Warsaw pact forces were superior. It could be then that the Warsaw pact played a part in keeping peace in Europe. The truth is that wars were exported, and not fought in Europe. They were fought in Vietnam, Africa and central America. The Secretary of State is wrong to mislead the House and the public by saying that NATO alone is responsible for keeping peace for 35 years. As the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Thomas) said, sooner or later that peace will break down.
The Secretary of State said categorically that the Russians were refusing to talk, as if that was their fault. Both he and the public know that the Russians are not talking because of the siting of cruise missiles in Europe and, more important, because of the elections in the United States of America. The Russians do not want to help President Reagan to be re-elected. If the Secretary of State were in the Russians' position, he would do the same. Everybody knows that no progress in disarmament talks will be made until after the presidential elections.
The Secretary of State said that NATO warheads in Europe would be cut by a third, but he did not say that many of those warheads were out-of-date and dirty, and would have to be replaced. If he told the truth and said that that was the real reason why the warheads were being reduced and replaced and that the new warheads would be more accurate and effective, we would have more respect

for him. When he seeks to massage public opinion by making such grandiose statements, he does not deserve the country's respect.
The Secretary of State referred to the continued oppression by the Soviets of the people of Afghanistan. I am sorry to see it, because it is wrong, but why does he not consider the oppression of the people in E1 Salvador and balance the two cases and his argument? The West and NATO have a good point, but we do our cause an injustice by playing the game in this way.
The Secretary of State said that he wants to talk to the Soviet Union, but that it takes two to have a dialogue. Here again I accuse him of arrogance. Britain is no longer a super-power. Two super-powers play the European stage — America and the Soviet Union—and Britain is not included. Was the Secretary of State saying that Britain was one of the two super-powers that wished to have a dialogue with the Russians, or was he speaking for President Reagan? He did not make it clear. It is time that the Government realised that we are no longer a superpower; we are a European power and we should tailor our defences appropriately.
I am not pro or anti the USSR or the United States of America, but I am prepared to go a little further than the Secretary of State did. He said that he believed that the Russian people wanted peace. I know that they want peace, as do the American people and the British people. It was wrong for the Secretary of State to be churlish and to make the grudging admission that he was persuaded that the Russian people wanted peace. It is an affront to human nature and dignity to say anything else. It is the responsibility of Governments to ensure that they have peace, but, as Opposition Members have said, the Government's policies in that regard are wrong. Eventually we shall have war and for the first time we can reduce our planet to a heap of cinders with no life remaining.
Deterrence is breaking down and will break down. The Opposition will not accept the misleading and slick statements of the Secretary of State, at least not while President Reagan is responsible for the largest and most costly build-up of weapons that the world has seen. He was aided and abetted in that by the Secretary of State, who said that Britain's defence expenditure has increased by 20 per cent. since 1979. We must reverse that build-up and adopt a truly defensive defence policy instead of an offensive one. One way of doing that would be to cancel Trident and to remove cruise missiles. It is becoming clear in the country at large that the Government, certainly under the leadership of this Prime Minister, are not electable for a third term. That gives me hope. If we are still here when the next election comes, we will remove Trident and cruise missiles.

Mr. Michael Colvin: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) for speeding up his remarks, and I shall try to be as quick as he was.
May I add a few words to what has already been said about the importance of the Merchant Navy to the nation's defences, and comment on the new star wars scenario, which raises some major questions about our independent nuclear deterrent?
I am fortunate to represent a constituency with a strong maritime tradition. Its connection with the sea was


highlighted on 1 June, when the memorial to commemorate those Royal Fleet Auxiliary officers who lost their lives in the Falklands conflict of 1982 was dedicated at Marchwood. I remind the House that some of the names of those in the service of the Crown that are recorded on the memorial are Chinese, so let us not forget the debt that we owe to Hong Kong when we decide its future.
Although the statement on the defence Estimates referred briefly to the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, it did not mention the importance of the Merchant Navy. In its report on the White Paper the Select Committee on Defence commented, rightly, on that serious deficiency. The previous Select Committee said in 1980 that merchant shipping had a strategic defence significance in peace time as well as in time of war. That was accepted by the then Secretary of State for Defence, who agreed to include details of the strength of our merchant fleet in future statements on the defence Estimates. That promise lasted for only one year, since when, in the Falklands campaign, we have seen the invaluable role of ships taken up from trade.
The Merchant Navy will clearly have a vital role to play in whatever sort of war Britain may be engaged, and in however long or short a period precedes its outbreak. NATO's planners have obviously considered the range of contingencies and prepared measures to respond to them. The size and shape of the merchant fleet, which does not depend directly on the Government but on the decisions of shipping companies and consortia, must be examined continually. I hope that there is no reason to suppose that either the Alliance or our Government have failed to take account of the state of our shipping industry in their strategic planning. Indeed, it is sobering to note that our registered deadweight tonnage has fallen.
It is, however, worth asking whether, in the event of an emergency, power of requisition can be exercised on all UK-registered vessels whether or not they are owned by British companies.
Having the ships is one thing—ensuring that they are able to fulfil their defence function is another. The Falklands war showed the need for merchantmen to be adequately armed. As the number of destroyers and frigates available for escort duties falls, the need for defensive equipment to be made available for merchant vessels rises.
First, there is the threat from anti-ship missiles that must be met either by kits for throwing out chaff to divert them or by containerised anti-missile batteries mounted on merchant ships. Secondly, more vessels should be equipped with gear for replenishment at sea. Thirdly, no one would dispute the need for air cover for convoys in the north Atlantic. This could be done by strengthening the decks of container ships and providing them with lifts to enable Sea Harriers or helicopters to be parked below the main deck. I believe that the capital cost of such measures should be borne by the state in return for restrictions on the right to "flag out" without Government sanction. By flagging out I mean registering abroad.
Fourthly, we have seen great technological change in our ships over the past few years, which has now almost eliminated shipboard cargo-handling equipment. In conventional war, therefore, an enemy could paralyse our domestic container terminals and those in the rest of

western Europe without much difficulty, and our shipping would be unable to unload. It is therefore vital that the Government carry out a study of emergency anchorages and ensure that we have a sufficient number of floating cranes and emergency lifting gear to unload container ships in the event of hostilities. We should be prepared to face up to the additional cost of stockpiling such equipment.
These are precautionary steps which should be supplemented by greater co-operation between the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy, with more training of civilian crews on the vessels likely to be requisitioned in the event of conflict. Perhaps more exercises such as Teamwork '84 should be undertaken.
It is impossible to prepare for every contingency. It is the unexpected conflict that poses the most awkward challenge. But of one thing we can be absolutely certain —Britain must be ready to respond rapidly and flexibly to any sudden challenge. I believe that the Merchant Navy will have a vital role to play. As our fourth arm of defence, it must receive full coverage in future defence Estimates.
I wish to comment briefly on the star wars issue, which has given a new dimension to the debate on Trident. Some Conservatives have never been 100 per cent. certain that the Trident decision was the right one. The problem is that while we accept the need for an independent nuclear deterrent it is difficult though not impossible to find acceptable alternatives that are credible.
Hitherto, the main argument against Trident has been the cost and the growing share of our defence budget that it will use up, to the detriment of our conventional forces. I am not in that lobby. My main criticism of Trident is that it gives us only one delivery system, so that all our new nuclear eggs are in one basket. That ignores two important principles of war—defence in depth, and flexibility.
The French have certainly understood those principles and rejected Polaris, when it was offered to them, in favour of their Triad system of deliveries.
We now have a situation where, by the mid-1990s—the time when Trident should come into service—the Soviet Union may well be able to zap those weapons with ballistic missile defence systems, or BMDs.
Even before the United States succeeded in shooting down a minuteman missile, I had decided to suggest in this debate that the development of BMD systems by the Russians, urged on by President Reagan's speeches and American developments, could mean that our single basket of Trident eggs would look far from credible by the time they came into service, and would certainly lose credibility before they went out of service in 40 years' time.
Sir John Nott, making the Trident announcement in 1982, said:
Ultimately, deterrence in the face of nuclear weapons has to rest on the possession of an indestructible second strike capability". — [Official Report, 29 March 1982; Vol. 21, c, 24.]
We may have that now, but will we still have it in the face of a Russian ballistic missile defence system in future? The answer is that we simply do not know.
But there is no doubt that the East-West balance of power which has been based on the appropriately named acronym MAD—or mutually assured destruction—will count for nothing once star wars BMD systems are operative. As The Times pointed out last week, both we and the French have every right to feel uneasy because of


this new round of defensive technology, which could destroy the ability of our smaller nuclear forces to get through and thus invalidate their deterrent power.
The star wars issue is serious. Of one thing we are certain, and that is that it will raise another question mark over the decision to go for Trident II and force us to look again at the credibility and costs of alternative systems, which might be a better way of preserving the peace and defending the realm.

Mr. A. E. P. Duffy: In the past, security meant the active defence of the home territory, but with modern weapons even defence is no longer enough. The aim has to be the prevention of war. The enemy now is war itself. Public opinion has demonstrated that and become more active and pronounced. Therefore, we must attempt to channel current public interest and anxiety in constructive ways. We need to explain clearly the choices before us in setting forth a defence policy which both reassures the public and deters potential adversaries. Yet there is no mention in the defence Estimates of any money spent on defence publicity.
At the same time, we must demonstrate through the serious and vigorous pursuit of arms control negotiations that the members of the Atlantic Alliance are dedicated to lower levels of armaments. Yet the Government's record of arms control and disarmament is unconvincing, to say the least.
That is why chapter five, entitled "The Services and the Community" could have made a vital contribution. Why was the absurdly brief paragraph 501 not expanded with a statement on how the people are being educated on the role of the armed forces as they affect their lives? To swing from a four-line paragraph into a 23-line paragraph, 502, all about how the Army helped the Northampton Youth Clubs Association build a dock, is frankly fatuous. It is as fatuous to list such activities—with the greatest respect to Northampton — above the protection of offshore resources, search and rescue and bomb disposal. For hydrography to be mentioned even lower than that is unbelievable. Not only is it vital to our naval operations and a first-class money-maker; it is probably an essential contributor to our survival in the long term.
The Soviets do not make that mistake. They are clearly well aware of the potential of the seas. While the picture of Soviet naval new build presented in annex A is awe-inspiring, perhaps the most telling phrase used is:
Meanwhile, the centrally-controlled Soviet merchant and fishing fleets are being steadily upgraded".
However, there is not one word about the security of our food or the raw materials necessary to our survival as they pass on the seas. Nor is there mention of the decimation of the British merchant and fishing fleets, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas) pointed out. We take for granted our ships to be taken up from trade.
I fear that we are already living in a fool's paradise. British shipowners are in business to make a profit, not to subsidise Government plans. It is impossible realistically to discuss our naval capability without discussing STUFT — ships taken up from trade. I beg hon. Members to insist on a detailed account of the status quo and the way ahead.
Nor can hon. Members allow themselves to be fooled by operational surface fleet numbers as they are presented,

following the powerful speech by the hon. Member for Beverley (Sir P. Wall). They have only to look at current and fairly recent shipbuilding programmes, to ask the Secretary of State what orders he proposes to place and to subtract the numbers being withdrawn from the operational fleet this year and next to become as alarmed as some Government supporters are, as we have heard during the debate.
It is vital to get into the enemy's mind in any threat analysis. Only thus can we provide the best defence. Equally, unless we appreciate his point of view, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek), the prospects of arms control and disarmament are lessened.
I do not find these fundamental truths adequately spelt out in the threat section of the statement. The people of a democracy must be convinced on the whys of defence. That could have been done most appropriately in paragraphs 102 to 105, dealing with the challenge facing NATO. As it stands, the section is about a military challenge. The more general threat, including the political challenge, should have been explained.
Taking up paragraph 106 and those following it on arms control, if we accept the view that it is vital to keep ourselves in the enemy's mind, we must ask whether the Soviets will ever allow a balance to be created in Europe. The immediacy of the threat on the central front is to the Soviets — as the immediacy of the threat was to the Americans when the Soviets tried it on in Cuba in 1962. Small wonder that the Soviets have dug in their toes over Pershing deployments.
There is a temptation to think of INF as tactical weaponry. However, figure 1 shows that SS20 deployments in western and eastern Russia cover in range the whole of Europe, the whole of continental Asia and Japan, plus the whole of north Africa. Does that threat exist because we are trying to match the Soviet capability on the European front? Will the Soviets ever allow us to catch up? Is the situation in the European hinterland thus arguably less stable rather than more so and the possibility of disarmament lessened?
If arms control is to be pursued realistically, each side must have a clear idea of its adversary's perception of its will as well as its capability. There is virtually no discussion along these lines in the defence statement.
Paragraph 116 speaks of Soviet chemical war capabilities. Overt Soviet writings, plus press reports. on Afghanistan, suggest that they consider such weapons to be a routine part of their armoury. Does the West have to respond with like for like?
As for paragraphs 213 to 216 on the combined Defence Staff, I need not rehearse the arguments for and against any arrangements which diminish the professionalism of the single service staffs. We heard the critique from the right hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery). Moreover, we have read the discussion in the correspondence columns of The Times by past chiefs of the defence staff and some past heads of single services. Their consensus is that the Chief of the Defence Staff is best served by healthy inter-service competition, with himself as umpire.
Yet, no matter how often we read paragraphs 213 and 214, I do not see how, in the light of the constraints placed on them in paragraph 213, the chiefs of staff could possibly perform the roles required of them in paragraph 214. It is as though a hospital administrator said to a


surgeon, "You reckon the operation is necessary. Get on with it, and I will decide how many swabs, instruments and bandages you can have." The right hon. Member for Pavilion thought that that sounded wet, as did the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen). So did I. Active service people will think it wet, too, and will lose faith in higher defence management.
If the proposed reorganisation takes place, it is bound to make the Ministry of Defence a more introverted place, thinking small, whereas it should be thinking more broadly. For example, the Navy must co-operate with the Foreign Office, the Department of Trade and Industry, the General Council of British Shipping and the supporting industries. It should get on with it, without having to explain to Colonel X or Group Captain Y why it must get on with it.
If the Ministry of Defence is thinking small on defence, and there are no single service Ministers, how is Parliament to think big? They were some of the questions that were addressed to the Secretary of State, in his absence, by his right hon. Friend the Member for Pavilion.
In paragraph 234 and those that follow, on industrial competition, it seems that the policy of providing the services with the right equipment and support has been subordinated to party dogma. For example, it is difficult to equate the ideals set out in the defence statement with the realities that were shown on the recent "World in Action" television programme on British Shipbuilders.
The objective set out in paragraph 205, of avoiding a budget
committed up to the hilt with expensive and inflexible programmes for several years ahead",
is hardly a philosophy to lend itself to private enterprise. It will not want a track record littered with cancelled contracts as plans change.
With regard to the plans for private yard refitting of naval vessels, the statement makes little mention of the accumulation of expertise available to the royal dockyards, or of the fact that refits are notoriously hard to keep to time. Breakdown, accident or war will change the pattern. The royal yards can cope with this requirement for flexibility, but can the private business man afford to wait around?
If private enterprise be the key phrase, why should the royal dockyards not provide a money-making service to users other than the Crown? It would be those secondary users who would have to accept any possible delay, not the fleet.
Paragraphs 301 to 321 deal with defence equipment procurement, but the tail must not be allowed to wag the dog. For example, I am not sure of the value of what paragraph 304 calls "promoting a dialogue" with industry without setting a staff target. When any of us goes shopping, it is to purchase what we want to buy, not what the shop wants to sell us.
One of the effects of the public debate over the role of nuclear weapons in the Alliance strategy has been the emergence of broad-based support for the conventionalisation of NATO strategy. As doubts about the moral legitimacy and military utility of the threat of first use of nuclear weapons have grown, so has the interest in reducing NATO's reliance on nuclear weapons through improving non-nuclear forces and, where possible, harnessing an emerging technology.
The search for financially feasible and politically sustainable options for enhancing conventional deterrence constitutes a critical—for some people the most critical —Alliance challenge for the 1980s. Despite that, how much and in what way NATO's conventional forces could and should be strengthened as a non-nuclear option is completely neglected in this year's defence Estimates. The Secretary of State's reference to first use this afternoon, fascinating though it was, has been heard before. It related to yesterday's argument. We have all heard that before, but we have moved on. That was reflected in the debate, and it is on the record.
Several new issues could and should have been addressed in this statement, as my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington (Mr. Boyes) said. How much is enough in conventional capability to maintain deterrence without invoking the threat of early first use of nuclear weapons? It is questions such as these that should have been posed. To what extent would improved conventional capability increase the prospect for a protracted or regionally limited conventional conflict in central Europe? What means of improving conventional defence would be most cost-effective? Is the Alliance prepared to devote additional resources to conventional forces? If additional resources are not available, what trade-offs or reprioritisation within current force plans make most sense? What role may arms control play in achieving stability in Europe at lower levels of conventional armaments?
These questions are being discussed by hon. Members on both sides of the House, who are facing up to the challenge of the late 1980s and how to preserve the peace and present a reasonable and convincing deterrent without having to resort to the nuclear option. There are others, such as how to explore emerging technology on behalf of conventional deterrence. What possibilities is new technology opening up for non-nuclear defence? How far away can we push that nuclear threshold? They are the questions to which the Secretary of State should have addressed himself. The Government's defence White Paper, I am bound to conclude, does not resolve those anxieties that have been raised repeatedly in the debate about the formulation and implementation of defence policy.
I cannot resist quoting from today's Times. The explanation offered for this unsatisfactory defence statement is
the poverty of ministerial thinking on strategic issues … We can do better for the security of Europe, and at a lower running cost, if only Mr. Heseltine could look up from his management toys and focus on the big picture of the future.
It is true that the defence statement makes a gesture in the direction of conventional forces, promising more men and more equipment in the front line, but we have heard all that before, and both political parties when in government have been doing precisely that for the last 14 to 15 years. Even the Secretary of State cannot avoid doing too little, and at the expense of a reduction in support services. The equation "more up front, fewer at the back" will not convince, and will only sound like skimping, whereas, as The Times says, what we are all looking for now is radical and innovative change. There is an absence of any serious attempt by the Secretary of State to look beyond the managerial minutiae, not only at the scale of Britain's strategic priorities, but at the possibilities that


exist, especially given his present chairmanship of Euro group, for reinvigorating strategic and tactical thinking within the Alliance. In the words, again, of The Times:
The prize of innovation and radical thinking would be considerable.
However, at the time when there is a need for the most clear-sighted debate about future defence policy, the Government are moving to neutralise the individual service chiefs, and to halt all inter-service argument. What a time! This cannot be good, and the right hon. Gentleman has not convinced his hon. Friends. Such argument as is called for cannot be sterile. Administrative efficiency is to be prized, but, in the Ministry of Defence, not at the cost of creative thinking.
The truth is that, after next year, defence spending may, for the first time in nearly a decade, begin to decline in real terms. Above all, after that, Trident will begin to bite deeply into the cash available for new equipment programmes. The assumption is that further management savings will fill the gap, but that is mere wishful thinking. The real danger is that, by concentrating spending on Trident, Britain's conventional forces will be weakened just when opinion is moving in favour of deterring any possible aggression in future by improving the conventional balance not merely in Europe, but even further afield, and encouraging other people to look towards conventional forces, thereby minimising the risk of a nuclear war. This anxiety has been expressed by every Opposition Member who has spoken. Whatever economies the Secretary of State secures now, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) warned earlier, the future appears to hold only the promise of further defence reviews, and an erosion of our conventional fighting capability.
My right hon. Friend quoted the Daily Telegraph. What the Secretary of State must know, because he has his press cuttings, is that he got a bad press. He cannot mention one newspaper, never mind one serious newspaper, that gave an unqualified welcome to the defence statement. Most newspapers came out hard against it, and the Daily Telegraph is not alone. When the Daily Telegraph uses the kind of language that it did on 16 May, the Secretary of State must ponder and ask himself whether he can easily dismiss the criticism in today's Times.
Britain is at a crossroads in defence policy and many people, including the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Speed), who made a telling and authoritative speech, believe that we cannot go two ways at once—but the Government are trying to do just that. Even among those who accept the desirability of an independent nuclear deterrent, there is a growing number who see the successor to Trident — the minimum which is credible and effective, so the Government tell us—as a millstone. It is a fact that defence policy is constrained by what the nation can afford. If we face the choice between a minimal nuclear deterrent and efficient conventional forces, a growing number of British people will feel more secure with the latter.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence Procurement (Mr. John Lee): We have reached the end of the first day of a two-day debate on the defence Estimates. In the remaining few minutes I shall endeavour to deal with some of the detailed points that have been raised. The debate has been marked by the genuineness of

the speeches. They have ranged from the anti-cruise unilateralist speeches of the hon. Members for Houghton and Washington (Mr. Boyes) and for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Thomas) to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley (Sir P. Wall), who asked for a significant increase on defence expenditure. We have covered the range of defence attitudes.
With the possible exception of the Merchant Navy, Trident has taken up most of our time. It was mentioned by the right hon. Members for Llanelli (Mr. Davies), and for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen), by the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Speed) in a questioning and probing sense. We also heard speeches in strong support of Trident from my hon. Friends the Members for Beverley and for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill).
The fundamental question which the Government faced when considering the replacement of the Polaris force was whether the possession of an independent and invulnerable strategic deterrent would make an attack, conventional or nuclear, by the Soviet Union on us and our allies more or less likely. The Government's view, which five successive Governments have shared, is that possession of an independent nuclear force enhances deterrence and prevents war by showing that the risks involved in starting a way are seen by a potential aggressor to outweigh any possible gain that it might hope to achieve. Against that background, there is no alternative to planning for a successor to the present force, which has served the country well by maintaining a continuous deterrent patrol since 1969. To our knowledge, the Soviet Union has never found one of our Polaris submarines on patrol.
The remotoring of the missiles and the Chevaline programme has ensured that the force remains effective until the mid-1990s, but it is wishful thinking to imagine that the life of the Polaris force can be extended indefinitely. The right hon. Member for Devonport conceded that. The choice of a submarine-launched ballistic missile such as Trident was not automatic. Other options were rigorously examined, as the open government document which was published in July 1980 made clear. However, the combination of a submarine-launched system, which can effectively be made invulnerable to attack, and ballistic missiles, which, unlike aircraft or cruise missiles, are not vulnerable to enemy air defences, represented the most cost-effective solution for a minimum credible deterrent force.
The right hon. Member for Devonport and my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford queried whether a national nuclear deterrent force based on ballistic missiles would remain effective into the next century, in the light of likely anti-ballistic missiles defences. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made clear, such likely developments were among the issues which were considered when the decision was taken to purchase the Trident system. It is precisely because we believe that the Trident system offers the best possible means of ensuring the continued effectiveness of our national nuclear deterrent and overcoming possible developments in defensive systems, that it was chosen. It was also suggested that a force of sea-launched cruise missiles would be be less expensive. Studies have shown that such a force, of camparable effectiveness, would be more rather than less expensive than Trident.
The unit cost of a cruise missile is less than that of a ballistic missile. However, as a cruise missile carries only


a single warhead, much larger numbers are required to provide a deterrent equivalent to a ballistic missile force. A cruise missile force would require many more submarines — the most expensive component of our strategic deterrent.
I hope that what I have said will put the cost of Trident into perspective. Its cost represents a considerably smaller proportion of the defence budget than any of the other major roles. The current Polaris force represents, on average, less than 2 per cent. of the defence budget. Over the period of procurement Trident will, on average, cost only 3 per cent. of the defence budget and 6 per cent. of the equipment budget.

Mr. Ashdown: The Minister spoke about a credible deterrent, and compared like with like. How many missiles comprise a credible deterrent?

Mr. Lee: I am not prepared to be drawn on that point. However, four Trident submarines, each with 16 missiles tubes, mean that a considerable number of warheads—as yet to be decided — can be deployed. It is an extremely effective and substantial system.
The latest estimate of the cost of Trident is £8·7 billion. The increase over the previous estimate is wholly attributable to inflation and exchange rate variations. I freely concede that, with 45 per cent. of expenditure in dollars, the cost is bound to vary with exchange rate movement and fluctuation—either up or down. It was suggested that Tomahawk missiles could be fitted to SSNs or even to surface ships. Again, those options have been considered, but to have a strategic missile parcelled out among the conventional fleet would produce an unacceptable conflict between the fleet's conventional and nuclear roles. Indeed, it could weaken our conventional deterrent.

Sir Antony Buck: Does my hon. Friend agree that one reason why the Government have chosen Trident is exactly the reason that caused the now Opposition to update Polaris by the creation of Chevaline? However, we are doing it openly and having a proper debate, whereas the Opposition did it in a wholly different way.

Mr. Lee: My hon. and learned Friend is right. I did not want to repeat the point, which he has made consistently and which embarrasses the Opposition.
A number of hon. Members asked about the size of the fleet, and specifically about the ordering of the type 23. The first-of-class order for the type 23 will be placed later this year. As is usual, there will be a gap of about a year to enable the shipbuilder to gain experience of the new design before further orders are placed. Subsequent ships will be ordered at a rate of about three a year. That was the objective set by Sir John Nott in July 1982. The detailed pattern of ordering has yet to be decided; it may vary a little from year to year to take advantage of batch ordering. As yet, we have not decided on the precise number of type 23s.
Currently, we have 55 escorts. It remains the Government's objective to maintain a front line of 50 destroyers and frigates in the longer term, all of which will be in the front line, and none in the standby squadron. A number of hon. Members praised the decision to run on eight ships.
In the 1990s, destroyers and frigates will, on average, be newer than they are today. They will also be more capable. Most will carry point defence missile systems and all will carry surface-to-surface guided missiles—either Exocet or Harpoon. An increasing number will be fitted with towed array sonars and all will be capable of carrying a helicopter, either Lynx or the new EH101.
Apart from those escorts, current plans are that the submarine fleet will remain at its present size, but there will be an increased proportion of the more capable nuclear submarines. The three carriers will continue in service into the next century. The existing specialist amphibious ships will reach the end of their lives in the 1990s and we are examining their replacement. Mine warfare forces will continue to be modernised with a third new class, the single role mine hunter being added to the two already under construction.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Duffy) intervened early in the speech of my right hon. Friend and raised the question of the number of ships currently on order. He endeavoured to make the point that the majority had been ordered by the Labour Government. Of the 37 ships currently on order, seven were ordered by the Labour Government and are still building. The remaining 30 were ordered by the Conservative Government. In addition to those 30, six ships ordered by the Conservative Government have already been completed and accepted.
The Select Committee report was referred to by many hon. Members and was gone through in detail by its Chairman, my right hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Sir H. Atkins), who welcomed the change in the tail-to-teeth ratio, in the arms control unit and in the whole concept of more competition and collaboration. He asked a number of questions about the possibility of substantially increasing competition.
A problem that we have at present, when we are utilising 90 to 95 per cent. of the procurement spend within the United Kingdom, is that we have a substantial number of monopolies or near-monopolies, companies such as Rolls-Royce, Westlands, Marconi Torpedoes and, to a great extent, British Aerospace. As we spend substantial sums with them each year, in prime terms it is not always possible to obtain competition, so there is a substantial drive within the Ministry of Defence to establish the maximum level of competition among subcontractors. That is one of our substantial aims. Nevertheless, competition policy is having a number of successes, and the figure of 30 per cent. has been mentioned as being the savings in certain instances.
Most hon. Members have commented on the whole question of the size of the Merchant Navy and its decline in recent years. We are extremely conscious of the situation, but I can only say at this stage that we are examining closely and in great detail with the Department of Transport the defence implications of the present and future size of the merchant fleet. I assure the House that the matter is under serious and active consideration. We are not unaware of the implications.

Sir Humphrey Atkins: I asked for an assurance that in the next White Paper, unlike this one, we should once again have what the Ministry of Defence used to provide, namely, a report on the size of the merchant fleet available to the Ministry of Defence in times of emergency. May I have that assurance?

Mr. Lee: I cannot personally give that assurance, but I assure my hon. Friend that the subject will be looked at most carefully.
On the subject of the merchant fleet and the sustainability of our naval force at sea, I draw the attention of the House to the announcement by the Secretary of State earlier that we intend to invite proposals shortly for a new class of support ship for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. I do not run down the importance of the merchant fleet, but the first line of support must be the Royal Fleet Auxiliaries.
The auxiliary oiler replenishment is a new concept for the Royal Navy. It is a one-stop ship, which means that a frigate or destroyer can replenish at sea its fuel, ammunition and stores from a single ship, whereas at present three separate operations might be required. The savings in valuable operating time must be obvious. Perhaps less obvious, but most important, is the fact that at the time of the Falklands, as the loss of the Atlantic Conveyor showed, it is vital not to concentrate high-value support items in too few ships. With the AORs, it will be possible to spread the risk — of the ammunition holdings, for instance—over more hulls.
The ships will also provide vital support to the major weapon system of the type 23 frigate — its antisubmarine helicopters. They will also be fitted with the means of self-defence, including the vertical-launched Sea Wolf system. These ships will enter service towards the end of the decade and a presentation will shortly be made to industry by the controller of the Navy. The intention is that the first batch of these AORs should number six.

Mr. D. E. Thomas: In that context, will the Minister give an assurance that there will not be a repeat of the appalling disaster at Bluff cove?

Mr. Lee: I sympathise fully with the emotion and sentiment behind the hon. Gentleman's question, but I cannot give a complete assurance that such a disaster will never happen again. It would be improper for me to give a flippant answer from the Dispatch Box.

Mr. Speed: When I questioned my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence at a sitting of the Select Committee on Defence on 22 May, he said that the Government were watching the position of the Merchant Navy and at that stage had not gone beyond that. Is my hon. Friend saying now that the Government have moved beyond that stage, or are they still watching the position?

Mr. Lee: When we respond to the Select Committee's report, we shall deal with that issue. It is safe to say that the issue is being considered by Ministers with considerable urgency.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) and other hon. Members talked about reorganisation. My right hon. Friend apologised to me for not being able to remain to listen to the Front Bench replies. It would not be appropriate at this stage in the debate to reply to questions on reorganisation. I shall draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to the remarks that have been made. I understand that it is my right hon. Friend's intention to present a White Paper to the House on reorganisation in July, when he can be fully questioned upon it.
The hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas) raised a genuine constituency interest when he talked about the royal naval dockyards. I know that the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) would have done likewise if he had been able to catch the eye of the Chair. The hon. Member for Dunfermline, West asked about the Levene report. When we reach a definite decision that changes will offer advantage, we shall fully consult the trade unions. I am sure that a statement will be made to the House. The hon. Gentleman knows that I have seen union delegations from Rosyth. I asked the members of those delegations to submit their proposals, counter-proposals and suggestions to me for consideration. That offer remains open.

Mr. Douglas: I take it that a statement will be made in the House and that it will not be presented in a written answer.

Mr. Lee: That has to be a matter for the business managers of the House and not for me personally. There is no intention not to have full debate on the issue.
My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor and Maidenhead (Dr. Glyn) made a number of interesting comments. He drew our attention specifically to the possible implications of a change in the Sino-Russian relationship and how that could affect us militarily.
The hon. Members for Houghton and Washington (Mr. Boyes), for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy and for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Strang) made anti-cruise and unilateralist speeches. I cannot deal with their arguments in any detail in the limited time that is available to me. We have had ample opportunity in separate debates to discuss cruise and unilateralism.
My hon. Friend the Member for Davyhulme praised our attempts and successes in increasing the size of the reserve forces, but wanted us to go even further. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford referred to naval reserves and asked whether we could do more to bring their training more up to date. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) raised a number of extremely important matters concerning Ferranti, a company in his constituency, for which he tries always to fight. He seeks to press home every advantage of the company whenever the opportunity arises.
In a democracy, it is right that there is a healthy debate on the extent of defence expenditure, on the balance between the services and on the balance between conventional and nuclear forces. The Opposition argue that, in a nuclear era, without mutual disarmament it makes sense to eradicate all nuclear weapons and bases from United Kingdom soil. We find that concept entirely unacceptable. One has only to look at the relentless buildup of Soviet chemical weapons to see that one-sided disarmament achieves nothing.
I freely acknowledge that certain Labour speakers tonight genuinely believe in substantial conventional arms expenditure, but they are increasingly in a minority as the harder Left within the Labour party takes hold. [Laughter.] The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) may laugh. Let us await the resolutions put and passed at this year's Labour party conference. We shall watch with interest.
We believe that the defence Estimates that we have submitted to the House are sensible and realistic, given the


threat as we perceive it, given the resources that are available, and given the fact that, regrettably, we have not so far achieved the balanced disarmament that we all seek. I commend the Estimates to the House.

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

Land Use Survey

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. David Hunt.]

10 pm

Mr. John Heddle (Mid-Staffordshire): I am most grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for having selected, as the subject of tonight's Adjournment, Britain's wasted acres and the case for a national land use survey, particularly on an evening when the House will be allowed to adjourn at a relatively early hour. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for having taken the time and the trouble, after a very busy day, to come here and respond to the debate.
The timing is particularly fortuitous for two other reasons. The first is that five days ago, as the House will recall, the Select Committee on Environment under the able chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi), published its report on green belt and land for housing. My hon. Friend the Chairman of the Select Committee very much regrets that constituency business prevents him from being able to be in the Chamber this evening.
The timing is fortuitous, secondly, because, four days ago, as you will recall, Mr. Speaker, the House debated — and the reply was given by my hon. Friend the Minister—the subject of the arts and the heritage. I was unable to be here on that day, but I read the Official Report over the weekend, and not once did any hon. Member, on either side of the Chamber, refer to our land as being part of our heritage.
I submit that Mark Twain got it half right when he said:
Purchase land. They ain't making it any more.
If he had been here in this Chamber in the latter half of the 20th century, I think he would have said: "Preserve land. Not only ain't they making it any more, it's our most valuable natural national resource." Yet, despite that, we as a nation seem to take land for granted. We cause it to become derelict and we despoil it. We ignore it and its maximum use at our peril.
I yield to no one in my admiration for what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and his ministerial colleagues in this Parliament and in the last have done to alert the nation's attention to the fact that there are many thousands of acres which, before our very eyes, are left derelict, despoiled, neglected and unwanted.
I yield to no one in my admiration for what the Government have done in bringing that land forward—as far as they are able to do so—for development, in encouraging that development with urban development grants and derelict land grants, ensuring that the owners of public land do not take that land for granted, as perhaps we, as pedestrians or drivers, have done, and compiling land registers.
If time permits, I propose to make one or two criticisms of the implementation of the vacant land registers. But I ask my hon. Friend whether, perhaps, as a nation, we may be guilty of squandering land as though we lived in the middle of some vast undeveloped continent instead of on a small and crowded island. Is not much of our countryside becoming destroyed and fragmented? Are not the hearts of our cities in part becoming rotten and decayed? Has there not been a chain reaction of destruction, not so much because we are wicked and destructive, but rather because as a nation we have become neglectful and wasteful?
The tragedy is that we have only incomplete and incompatible records of what is happening before our very eyes, of how much land is being used and of how those uses have changed over the years, whether or not in the context of industrial change that has taken place with them. I cite as an example the M25 motorway box, which was no doubt assembled by stealth with ministerial consent to provide easy access for traffic wanting to skirt the metropolis. Is there anyone within the Department of the Environment who is able to assess the demand for industrial development, factory and warehouse space, distribution space, for housing and the attendant facilities such as schools, shops or offices within the motorway box, based on the information, statistics and data that are at his fingertips?
The motorway is the responsibility of the Department of the Environment and the adjacent development is the responsibility of the adjacent county planning authorities which devolve their powers to some extent to adjacent local planning authorities. I wonder whether we can have an overall picture as a result. I submit that, in the age of the computer, there can be no excuse for not having such information available at the touch of a button, or at the flick of a finger.
Let me give the House one or two statistics to show how prodigal we have been in the recent past. In the five years between 1975 and 1980 our nation lost about 500,000 acres of grade I or II productive agricultural land to some use or other. That area is equivalent to the county of Gloucestershire.
Wasteland that lies idle, derelict, dormant or despoiled in our cities and towns, and even in our villages, is still increasing. By the end of the 1970s we had enough wasteland on which to rebuild, if we had wanted to, all of the 34 new towns that the House, in its wisdom, has created in times past, with space left to spare.
Let me put it another way. The wasteland that has been identified in vacant land registers is about 250,000 acres. I am sure that the amount of vacant land is substantially more than that because land registers deal only with land of more than one acre in size. I am certain that most of the local authorities that contribute the information to land registers have incomplete records of what they own. Those 250,000 acres are sufficient to cater for 5 million families, and to provide homes for 15 million people.
I must ask my right hon. Friend whether we are reinstating the land that county planning authorities designate for mineral extraction purposes. I believe that a condition is imposed by local planning authorities on granting licences to mine for whatever purpose, to the effect that the licence holder, the freeholder or leaseholder must reinstate the land after it has been worked. But how many mineral operators leave those areas almost completely mined, but not quite and so avoid the necessity of reinstating the land to its former use as agricultural land, or to leisure or recreation purposes or for housing?
I understand that the Department of the Environment has identified about 350,000 acres that has been mined but not yet put back into an unspoiled and non-derelict state. Other estimates put the acreage of wasteland due to mineral operations at about 700,000 acres, or the equivalent of the whole of the curtilage of my county of Staffordshire. There is a great difference between 350,000 and 700,000 acres. There are two different views, neither

one nor the other being necessarily correct. In the absence of a national land use survey, it is impossible to quantify the amount of land that is so despoiled.
We have what we might call "bufferland": the sterile interface land between industry and other urban or rural activities. It is blighted, underused or vacant because of its former industrial use, its close proximity to an airport or motorway or because it is close to land with an existing industrial use and is perhaps subject to fumes or toxic waste. Estimates of such blighted wasteland vary from 750,000 acres to well over 1 million acres. However, in total we are talking about the staggering figure of 2·5 million acres, for which we have no national record as to its past, present or future use. I am talking about 5 per cent. of our total land surfaces, or an area equivalent to the combined counties of Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Hampshire that is lying derelict, despoiled, underused and idle.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will acknowledge that there is widespread and growing concern about that huge loss and its social and economic consequences. Of course, there are many organisations concerned with parts of the total problem, and with conservation of particular areas at risk, with the loss of a hedgerow or of a species of butterfly. They do a marvellous job, but we and they must never lose sight of the total picture of national land loss. There is a danger that that will be overlooked because of purely local worries.
One organisation that persuaded me to accept its fine of argument and provided me with a number of the statistics that I produce for the House tonight was the Land Council, which has made a submission to my hon. Friend the Minister and to the Select Committee, which reported last week. My hon. Friend is as aware as I am of the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, although he will be much better acquainted with the details of it. It sought to implement a rational use of land. It is the envy of many other countries, particularly in Europe, but it has not helped to implement that rational use of land. There is still no agreed knowledge as to how we currently use our land nation-wide. Neither that Act nor any subsequent Town and Country Planning Act has provided the resources to enable us to find out.
Is nothing, then, being done? My hon. Friend will be aware of the commission, recently announced, to ask the Ordnance Survey to undertake what will amount to reporting land use change. But I submit that the enterprise will be hampered by two particular drawbacks. First, it will have no ability to measure changes in land use, as there is no common, agreed baseline or classification system from which to measure. Secondly, the surveys will be partial and random, and accurate results from the whole country cannot be extrapolated from such sample surveys. There is, too, a project being run by the Countryside Commission and the Nature Conservancy Council to monitor some aspects —but only some — of landscape change.
Random surveys that are based on arbitrary classifications will not fit the national bill, however useful they may be to individual organisations locally. My hon. Friend may argue that derelict land registers will surely provide the answer that I seek. As I have said, I welcome the registers, and if we had them earlier we might have headed off some of the inner city problems, because private capital might have been prepared to invest.


However, it has not done so, because it was not aware that the land was lying, derelict, despoiled and neglected before our very eyes.
I should stress that I am talking about a national survey that is specifically related to land use. No part of my proposal refers in any detail to the proposition put forward by Dr. Alice Coleman that there should be a national survey of land ownership. My hon. Friend will be aware of the first report of the Environment Committee, which was published last Wednesday. Indeed, I paid tribute to it earlier. It recommends that a pilot study should first be commissioned using a number of methods
including that proposed by the Land Council and the results evaluated against the results of the Ordnance Survey-based project already commissioned by the Department".
I hope that my hon. Friend will consider the cost of setting up a pilot study to provide the records that I believe that the Department will require to monitor the change of land use in future. I believe that it will cost about £250,000 to fund such a study.
Funds could be made available from two Euro-sources. What better time to dwell upon those than in the aftermath of last week's elections to the European Assembly. I refer to the ESPRIT fund, which is designed to explore information systems, and the DG fund which is specifically related to the environment and consumer protection.
As populations have risen so has the destruction of land. A population census every 10 years enables us to understand the forces acting upon it. What could be more logical and valuable than to institute a decennial land use survey to complete the national picture of our island, of its land—its most valuable national resource—and its people to enable us henceforth to use our land sensibly so that we are not profligate with such a vital and irreplaceable resource?

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Neil Macfarlane): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Heddle) for raising this important subject and for demonstrating that he has had a wide and varied interest in this important issue for a long time. He has identified the wider interest outside the House. My hon. Friend has described the versatility and importance of the whole subject.
The debate on a national land use survey is related closely to the concerns of the recently published report of the Select Committee on the Environment. I pay tribute to its work. It dealt with the need to protect green belts, to encourage urban regeneration and to make adequate land available for development.
The Government's commitment to these aims is enshrined in the circular advice which my Department gives to local authorities in the exercise of their planning functions. I agree that a new comprehensive land use survey, repeated at regular intervals, would be a most useful indicator of how far we are succeeding in our pursuit of these aims and in the preservation of the countryside in general. I endorse what my hon. Friend said about our priceless asset.
The Environment Committee's report on green belt and land for housing was received last week and is being

studied. My hon. Friend will appreciate that I cannot make a fuller comment at present. The Government will respond to the report in due course.
The report includes comments on the draft green belt and land for housing circulars published for consultation in February. My right hon. Friend expects to publish these circulars shortly, having taken account of the Committee's comments on them.
Going out on the ground to complete such comprehensive surveys is labour-intensive and therefore costly, especially if they are to be completed in a short space of time and we need to be confident about their accuracy. My Department has therefore for some time been considering other possibilities ranging from ground sample methods to the employment of the new remote sensing devices carried by aircraft or satellite.
Some provide information which can be stored in digital form and processed automatically. Regrettably, in spite of the technical advances which have been made in recent years, I am advised that none of the remote sensing methods available at present offers images with a clarity of resolution sufficient to interpret changes in the extent of urban land use categories with acceptable accuracy. This is especially the case for the survey of the fringes of urban areas where they intermingle with the surrounding countryside.
My Department has also turned to other statistical means of gaining land use information. At present, for net changes out of farmland and into a broad urban use category, we rely on the data supplied by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food from questions asked of farmers in their annual June census. But the statistical reliability of this source is such that the data are made available only at the national level and as annual averages over five years.
Although they are limited in scope, these figures have provided useful measures of the success of our policies guarding against unnecessary loss of agricultural land. These losses should be placed in perspective. About 75 per cent. of English land, where the population pressures are greatest, is still in farming use and another 6 per cent. is under forestry or woodland. These percentages are even higher for Wales and the United Kingdom as a whole.
The Ministry of Agriculture's figures for transfers from agriculture to urban development go back to the 1920s. They show that the average loss to urban development, following the introduction of the town and country planning system, is substantially lower than it was pre-war. The downward trend is best illustrated by the estimates for England and Wales, where the figures are the most complete. They show that transfers from agriculture to a wide range of urban developments, including roads and quarries, averaged about 42,000 acres for each year between 1965 and 1970. But that is compared with yearly averages of 62,000 acres in the 1930s, when there was a boom in house-building. The latest figures available, up to 1981, show much lower averages of 19,000 acres.
I wish to show no complacency. The recession of two or three years ago may well have lowered the figures. Our policies must continue to ensure that only the minimum of agricultural land, preferably of the lowest qualities, is taken for development and that no land is so damaged that it cannot be used, eventually, either for development or farming.
My hon. Friend has been a diligent questioner about the success of the land register initiative in securing the release


of unused public land. I share his view entirely. It is true that there is no room for complacency. Some 112,000 acres of idle land are on the registers, and nearly half of it appears to be suitable for development. We cannot afford to let assets lie fallow in this way. But I must beg to differ slightly from my hon. Friend when he says that land registers are not working as they should. Since the scheme began, 9,315 acres of registered land have been sold and a further 4,276 acres have been removed from the registers because the land has been brought into use in the public sector. The six-monthly return for 1 January showed in fact a marked acceleration in this turnover. Moreover, over a third of the land which remains on the registers is available for disposal. The power to direct the disposal of a particular land register site has not been used yet, but my right hon. Friend is ready to use it when he is satisfied that it would be justifiable to do so in relation to a particular site.
In the past, for the three years from 1975 to 1978, statistical information on land use changes was sought from local authorities. It looked to be a promising approach, but most authorities proved unable to supply the information required. On taking office, we reached the conclusion that the results were inadequate in relation to the effort involved and we asked officials to investigate improvements urgently.
My Department has been fortunate in having free access to complete air-photo cover of the country flown by the Royal Air Force in 1969. During the 1970s this was analysed in land use terms by consultants and the results were published in 1978. Unfortunately, such are the limitations on the interpretation of aerial photographs for small areas of development, that the results, although comprehensive in national coverage and giving a very good idea of the broad extent of urban development some 15 years ago, provide use categories which are not relatable in any direct sense to the other sources of land use, stock or change data.
So far, I have referred to the past efforts made by my Department in this direction because it is important to understand them. I am also aware of the considerable work by notable academics in achieving surveys and estimates of urban and rural land use. A first effort at a survey of the whole country was undertaken by Professor Stamp in the 1930s, but that concentrated on rural land utilisation. Estimates of the total urban area, at that time, were derived from it. I am also aware of the work done by Miss Alice Coleman of King's college, London, which my hon. Friend mentioned, in directing a survey on a roughly comparable basis during the 1960s. Inevitably, that also took a long time to complete.
Currently, the Land Decade Educational Council, a private body, has as one of its aims the promotion of further land utilisation surveys at regular intervals. It would like the first one to be completed in 1986—the 900th anniversary of Domesday. But in this connection perhaps I can emphasise the point that neither we nor the council as far as I know, is interested in registers of property holdings on the lines of the original Domesday Book.
The current interest is in what is happening to the broad patterns of the use of our land—for example, its use for housing or industry or agriculture, the scenic patterns of the landscape, and its coverage of fields, woodlands and natural features — all of which my hon. Friend mentioned — to provide policy indications for the

Government, its agencies, such as the Countryside Commission and the Nature Conservancy Council, and the local authorities of how far planning and conservation policies are guiding change.
With this aim very much in our minds, and taking note of constructive comments from outside bodies, the Department has recently undertaken some further initiatives in the development of methods for monitoring change and periodic survey. For the past two or three years, departmental efforts in this direction have been devoted mainly to the possibilities of gaining up-to-date information about change in urban land use, especially developments on agricultural land, and about changes to rural landscape features. We have taken the view that a better understanding of the rate and pattern of change appears to offer the most effective means of providing early results for evaluating our policies rather than seeking the full picture of our stock of land uses or landscape coverage.
Those two main initiatives on land use and landscape change are related but are seeking to measure different things. From studies of alternative methods of getting statistics on changes to urban land use initiated by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment, when he was Minister for Local Government and Environmental Services, it emerged that the most economical approach would be to build upon the map revision work of the ordnance survey. I am not sure that I carry my hon. Friend entirely with me on this subject, but the revision is being undertaken consistently and continuously and, naturally, it is done in a most professional way. The survey programmes are devised on the basis of intelligence received from several sources, including local authorities, about change on the ground. Some areas and some kinds of change—mainly the urban extensions—are surveyed more frequently and therefore kept more up to date than others. But over time the whole country is covered
Pilot studies have been completed, and I am proposing to seek a contract with the ordnance survey for it to record and supply land use change information on a regular basis for an initial period of three years starting in January 1985. The costs of the raw data will be small, as the ordnance survey will be charging only the marginal cost of noting, on our special form, locational references and changes to parcels of land use as they are being surveyed for map revision.
Information on some 19 categories of urban and rural land use will be collected from those data. We would expect within two years of the starting date to have a good demonstration of the broad patterns of changing land use at national and regional level. Later, when we have received more observations, we would expect to give fuller details, possibly down to county level and for special areas such as green belts and national parks, of changes between the most important individual categories of land use.
Our other initiative has been to examine ways of improving information on rural landscape change in conjunction with the Countryside Commission. This type of monitoring is important because there is no ready-made surveying process like that of the ordnance survey.
Proposals were invited from survey firms, research centres and Government agencies to establish the current, past and future distribution and extent of important landscape features. A methodology is now being developed by the chosen contractor with advice from other


interested agencies and Government Departments. It uses a sampling frame based on previous work done by the Forestry Commission. Within the sample areas, the coverage of landscape features will be determined using a mixture of aerial photography, satellite imagery and ground survey.
By "features" I mean land, cultivated or under grass, woodlands, trees, walls, hedges, and so on. The sampling method is expected to provide statistics on the stock of such features at national, regional and possibly county levels, for 1981, 1971 and 1961, so that change can be assessed at a known level of statistical reliability.
Perhaps I should mention that we are also looking to the Nature Conservancy Council for information regarding the change in extent of habitats of nature conservation importance. My officials are in close contact with the NCC survey, which will provide complementary information to the landscape study. The two departmental monitoring initiatives will be to a great degree complementary. One deals with aspects of change to the coverage of countryside features and the other is primarily concerned with current changes to urban land use—that is, "development".
However, such change data, despite their immediate value for policy purposes, can provide only year-by-year comparisons of how land is changing use. They provide no sign of what percentage of land in a use has changed. To achieve that, data on the present stock of land are needed and my Department is also at present considering ways of achieving this.
I have mentioned that the Land Decade Education Council has for some time been promoting its ideas for a national land utilisation survey. It has been in touch with my Department, and, I understand, with the European Commission, which may provide financial support.
Full ground surveys are expensive. I note that the recent report of the Select Committee on the Environment quoted

a sum of £7 million for a wide survey. It also recommends that a study of alternative methods should be undertaken. I am happy to say that we are already considering such a study as the next step.
What seems to be required first is an examination of all the latest developments. The study should cover ground surveys, remote sensing, which is already under consideration for the landscape monitoring project, and the interpretation of ordnance survey maps. It should consider the possibilities of both full and sample surveys. The prime aim would be to produce a stock survey compatible in terms of definitions and areas with the land use change monitoring exercise. It may become apparent through the study that there are fruitful was of merging data from various sources which could be tested in field trials.
I am therefore commissioning such a study. Among other things it will, I hope, give us a better idea of the likely cost so that we can then decide whether what we get—with whatever data limitations are involved — would represent good value for money.
In conclusion, the case of a national land use survey is under urgent consideration by the Government. My hon. Friend's contribution this evening will be of great benefit to us, and I hope that we can maintain close contract so that we can use his advice and experience, and that of other sources. The contribution of improved land use information to policy-making is already recognised, but to technical problems are complex and the costs could therefore be prohibitive. However, we have taken some tentative but constructive first steps to explore ways of overcoming the major problems that have dogged past attempts to establish comprehensive and reliable statistics on urban land use and landscape coverage.
The debate has been constructive, and I am most grateful to my hon. Friend.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at half-past Ten o'clock.